When your Spouse has Signed up with Dating Websites

Dating sites over the internet has added a whole new dimension to personal relationships. While on one hand they have enlarged the dating pool and made it easier to search for partners based on certain preferences , the anonymity afforded the Internet has also led to cases of cheating and online affairs. Thus it is no longer unusual to discover that a partner is conducting an online relationship or at least looking for one, though the growing trend may do nothing to diminish your hurt on discovering that the same thing has happened to you. However there are ways to cope with such a revelation and here is what you can do when you find that your spouse has signed up with dating websites.

TIP: Download the guide to winning a man's love, attention and devotion for life.

Scope for ambiguity

While dating and social networking websites are avowedly different in purpose, fact is that intention and dynamics of online relationships are often fluid. Thus social networking sites were created to help members to make new friends and connect with like-minded people but they also bring people in touch with old flames and allow them to explore new affairs even though they might be married. Again though dating sites are explicitly to help connect singles, some of them encourage members to form or join blogs, groups and forums based on particular interests which then function on the lines of social networking tools. Thus before you equate your partner’s joining a dating website to the first step in online cheating, ask him/her clearly what is going on. Your partner is the best placed to tell you the real reason why he/she signed up with a dating site and before you arrive at conclusions of your own, you owe it to the person to give him/her a chance to explain.

Watch out for the signs of cheating

Though dating websites may have provision for social networking, there is no doubt about their primary purpose – that of bringing members together for the purpose of dating. So even if your spouse tries to explain his/her joining the site as a way of interacting with members based on certain interests, you need to watch out for signs of cheating. The first of these will be your partner spending an inordinate time on the computer. He or she may take hours claiming to update his/her status, post photos or chat with contacts, often to the extent of neglecting other commitments, both personal or professional. More importantly watch for a strong streak of secrecy – for instance if you find your spouse suddenly turn the screen away or close the internet window as soon as you walk into the room, it may indicate that something was on that he/she didn’t want you to see and which may well have been a chat session with a lover. If you notice the above signs in addition to some classic symptoms of a cheating spouse like swinging between excessive attention and complete neglect towards you, unexplained absences, disinterest in a shared social life, unnatural secretiveness and perhaps emotional extremes of joy and despair, chances are that your spouse is already engaged in an online relationship through the dating site. Just like face-to-face affairs may leave a paper trail of movie tickets you never went to as well as credit card bills of phone calls you never made and dinners you never had, similarly you may also be able to pick up some electronic footprints like sites visited in your spouse’s computer or suspiciously empty browser histories. And if you want to go the whole hog, there are spy softwares like Stealth ibot Computer spy which will not only give you a record of anything that has been typed like passwords and messages on Facebook but will also let you view a history of websites visited and take screenshots. While none of the above signs by themselves are proof of online cheating, taken as a whole they may well indicate another point of interest for your spouse.

See if you both are on the same page

As if human relationships were not complicated enough, the internet has brought in further complexities in the form of questions whether chatting online constitutes infidelity. Thus while you may view with concern your spouse’s joining a dating site, he/she may not think of it as cheating at all but merely some harmless online interaction – after all, your spouse may reason, if he/she has not met anyone in real life or had actual sex, how is it infidelity in the first place. The fact though remains that any relationship, sexual or non-sexual, which causes a person to become emotionally distant from his or her partner is harmful, and online dating, when one's motives are impure, is not an exception to this rule. Typically, when individuals engage in online relationships, they do so without their partner's knowledge, and they hide what they are doing under a veil of secrecy. In all these ways, this type of online behavior is not unlike that of those who are involved in sexual infidelity. Further, the amount of attention that is being placed on the online relationship inevitably takes time and attention off of the primary relationship, and this alone has the potential to cause problems between a couple. Also, apparently innocent online chatting can quickly and easily turn into a relationship that is romantic or sexual in nature; thus it is possible that your spouse may have joined the dating site not for some harmless chatting but for the sole purpose of meeting someone with whom they can pursue a physical relationship. Therefore, while it might be argued that online chatting is more or less a "safe" form of cheating, or not cheating at all, it cannot be denied that it has the potential to bring harm to the primary relationship.

When you don’t agree

If you are certain that your spouse joined the dating site with the intention of meeting someone in real life or if you plainly see that your spouse’s online interactions are actually online cheating, then you need to ask yourself what you want. You may be hurt by your spouse’s actions but cannot bear the thought of divorce – in such circumstances you need to proceed very carefully. The revelation and perhaps admission of your spouse’s online wandering is likely to come upon as a shock but try to take it as calmly as possible. Instead of crying or throwing a fit, listen to what your spouse has to say and then ask if you can think about it. In the meantime gather your thoughts and especially go over the reasons why your spouse feels the need to look elsewhere for conversation or bonding. It is essential that you discuss things with your spouse but do it tactfully. Instead of lashing out at him/her or flinging accusations and abuses, calmly ask him/her what made them think of such an option and if there is room for options like working on your marriage, addressing his/her particular needs, wider sexual experimentation and so on.

Get help

If your spouse is clear that he/she joined the dating site to date others, it is likely that he/she has already thought things through and that your arguments and persuasions could have little effect. However things can still be salvaged if you both agree to see a therapist or at least a marriage counselor. As a third party, a marriage counselor will have no preset notions or prejudices about either of you and thus will be able to look at the issues involved in an objective light. However don’t have false hopes that a counselor will be able to talk your partner out of his/her decision to date others. Instead a counselor will only help you both to communicate better which in turn may enable you both to work out the issues of conflict in your relationship and keep your marriage monogamous. In the end despite more effective communication, if you find that your priorities are completely at odds with each other or your spouse remains obstinate about an open relationship, then you need to ask yourself if you can continue with a spouse who is bent on having other sexual relationships – if not, there is little else that you can do but to prepare yourself for a divorce.