Couple to Divorce Over Virtual ‘Affair’

A woman is to divorce her husband after discovering he was having a virtual affair within the online game "Second Life," newspapers reported Friday.

Amy Taylor, 28, met her husband David Pollard within the game in May 2003, and six months later, she moved into his home in Cornwall.

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The couple married in July 2005, while their "Second Life" avatars Dave Barmy and Laura Skye - younger, slimmer versions of their real-life selves - also held an online ceremony for their virtual friends.

After a rare break from the computer, however, Taylor returned to find her 40-year-old husband in an intimate, albeit virtual, position with an online prostitute within "Second Life", which she said was the "ultimate betrayal".

"I was so hurt," she was quoted as saying in The Times, adding that theirs was a "very serious marriage".

"I just couldn't believe what he'd done. It's cheating as far as I'm concerned, but he didn't see it as a problem and couldn't see why I was so upset.

"He said I was just making a big fuss and tried to make out it was my fault for not giving him enough attention."

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Second Life is an online role-playing game with more than 15 million users, in which players can create virtual avatars and interact with other gamers, or the environment.

The game has its own virtual economy, in which online currency can be exchanged for real-world US dollars, and several major businesses have set up "branches" within the game, while others operate entirely within it.

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According to the Daily Telegraph, Taylor claims that Pollard is now engaged to the woman he was having an online tryst with, despite never having met her.

She has, meanwhile, found a new love, through fantasy online role-playing game "World of Warcraft".

Source-AFP
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