Is It Cheating?

My mother died of cancer five years ago. Watching her slowly wither, and watching my father mourn even before she died exposed the darkest side of love—losing it. Months before and after her death I found it necessary to pull back from the world, internalize instead of connect, afraid of the bond that comes with sharing, scared of caring too much.

My husband found my withdrawal particularly disturbing. I wasn’t there for him like I’d always had been—his emotional connection to himself and the world, his sounding board—questioning, evoking him to explore and get in touch with his feelings daily. We worked, and took care of our two children, then two and five. I was the canonical mom—their needs were met physically and emotionally, as it is simply not possible for me to distance myself from my kids, but at the end of the day I had little left to give to my husband. So two months before my mother died he went online to Craigslist and found someone else to talk to.

He made me privy to his relationship with “Betsy,” three weeks after I buried my mother. We were sitting on our bed. He was brushing my hair (a shared ritual since we started dating). Per usual, I casually asked him about his plans for the following day. He hesitated before telling me he had a lunch date. With who, I inquired. Again, he hesitated, then told me with someone ‘new,’ a ‘friend’ he’d made online. They’d been emailing each other regularly (perhaps daily, though I’ll never know), he explained matter-of-factly. And by the way, this ‘new friend’ was a single female who lived just the other side of the bay, only a few miles from his office in San Jose.

My skin started to crawl. I sat in front of him while he stroked my hair and listened to him explain how he’d gone onto a Craigslist discussion board to find someone familiar with the grieving process. Betsy was among many who responded but the only one that struck a chord, sparking their ongoing correspondence. He hadn’t mentioned her sooner because he hadn’t thought of it. Their communication had been strictly online and meeting tomorrow for lunch wasn’t on his radar until I asked about his plans. He had lunch meetings all the time. He insisted it was innocent, that it wasn’t ‘anything,’ just a possible new ‘friendship’ he wanted to explore.

I turned to face him, sat cross legged on the bed in front of him. My heart raced as I tried to form my words. Betrayal was only one of a flood of feelings. His expression of righteous indignation at my reaction to his news felt as if he were mocking me while I spoke. What happened to his original intention to help me with grieving? We’d become more distant than ever since I’d stopped being his conduit. Finding a stranger to share his feelings instead of going to a counselor if he felt he couldn’t come to me was undermining to the extreme. Part of our foundation was based on our mutually agreed upon commitment of fidelity when we married. Having an ongoing intimate dialog with another woman without telling me was deceitful at best, but arranging a meeting, bringing their relationship out of cyberspace into the real world was beyond inappropriate—it bordered adultery, regardless if they ever became physical.

My husband’s hackles raised, he discounted cheating with a wave of his hand stating he had no intension of ever getting physical with Betsy. His online relationship had no potential to go beyond friendship. He was in total control, sought only a companion since I’d become so distant. He insisted I was completely wrong assuming him naive, assured me he’d fend off any advances if the unlikely event occurred, and did not understand why I was so upset that the friendship he’d begun just happened to be with a woman.

We talked late into the night. I tried to communicate how lonely it made me feel that he chose to invest his limited free time developing a relationship with Betsy instead of with me, which is why I could not sanction him meeting her the next day. He apologized for checking out when I did, going outside instead of trying to reach me and agreed to cancel his lunch date, but vowed he had not, nor would ever have an affair. I resolved to believe my husband’s intentions were exactly what he said. He told me he wrote Betsy one last time to tell her he was ending their email correspondence. I trust it was their last communication, but I used to wonder—did he miss her. And if I really trusted my husband would I have had the need to deny him a new friendship?

I was reminded of Betsy recently, like a thorn in my sole, when South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s affair was exposed, and the Governor insisted it started as an ‘innocent’ email correspondence. Last week a friend emailed me he just found out his wife had been engaged for over a year in an email relationship with a man she met on Facebook. He’d happened upon over 300 correspondences and unable to resist opening them, found most were casual exchanges about kids or politics or rants about daily frustrations. Rattle by the lascivious possibilities, he asked me if he should confront his wife about her emails. Again Betsy came to mind and I was lost on how to advise him.

Is it wrong to forge an online friendship with your sexual preference when you’re married, or in an exclusive relationship? Is it cheating on your partnership if the friendship stays ‘virtual,’ or never becomes physical?