"The Second Life"

Before the internet was even thought of, communcation was limited. Back then, they didn't have all the access they wanted or needed in order to find someone, talk to someone, or simply look something up. Who would have ever thought that the internet would be used for social life: dating, friends, family, etc? Today the internet has been said to break up couples, cause fights, and even lead to divorce. It has been considered to be the "second life" for many couples. Allowing either the woman or man to search the internet to find something or someone to satisfy their needs. Sadly, for this British couple the internet took a turn for the worst.

Amy Taylor a.k.a DJ Laura Skye (20) and David Pollard a.k.a Dave Barmy (40) met in an internet chatroom. She moved all the way from London to be with him Newquay, North Cornwall. Like any other couple, their relationship started out great, having fun as a new couple in real-life and cyberspace. In the second life, they were two completely different people. They dressed differently and found themselves acting differently as well. However, one afternoon when Amy woke up from a nap she found David watching his virutal world character having sex with a prostitute.

As a result, Taylor ended their online relationship, but stayed together in real life. Taylor wanted to test Dave Barmy's character and Pollards loyalty by turning to a virtual female private eye called Markie Macdonald. He passed this test and Barmy and Skye got back together in the virtual world. In the virtual world and real life, they got married. Everything was back to as planned. Taylor sensed something was wrong though. Dave Barmy was chatting affectionately to a woman who was not Laura Skye a.k.a. Amy Taylor. It got so hard for her that she filed for an actual divorce. Taylor said, "People find love in lots of different ways." Pollard admitted that he was having an on-line relationship with an American woman and said that he didn't think it was anything serious or that he didn't do anything wrong.

All men say that it's never that serious or they didn't think they did anything wrong. David R. Hall states, "Contrary to the popular belief that living together before marrying is an effective way to reduce a couple's chance of divorcing, major studies in several Western countries show that couples who cohabit prior to marriage have a significantly higher risk of getting divorced than couples who do not cohabit before marriage." Living together before marriage can be a good and bad thing. A good thing because it allows for the couple to spend more time together to see if they're really ready for this. A bad thing because things already may be good enough and as time goes on they might get sick of eachother. For this British couple, things may have already been good, but David Pollard's addiction to this "second life" was something Amy Taylor couldn't tolerate. No woman or man should have to compete with something that doesn't exist at all!

Images are from flikr.