hi, I am a happily married woman..or i was until i discovered the Chat rooms. Now I use every excuse I can think of to go online. Everything from checking emails to I'll only stay on for a few minutes but the minutes add up to hours. And I found myself lying to my husband. I tell myself I have made good friends online but the reality of it is I spend time staring a a computer screen instead of time with my husband and family and my real friends. I get irritated if the kids ask me a question while I am online chatting and I have sent them into the other room to watch TV instead of sitting down and talking with THEM. I know now that I have a problem and need help to get over this.

I've been married for 10 years and almost ruined my wonderful marriage by using Chat Rooms. I was in such denial that I had to hit rock bottom before I realized that I was addicted. I neglected my kids, my husband, my friends and I ignored their pleas to get help. The next thing I knew, I was separated from my husband and totally alone in an empty apartment with my computer. Luckily, I got my life back. But not without experiencing alot of pain. I have not chatted for almost a year. I still get urge when I'm stressed, but we have disconnected chat use from our computer.

Please write me. I have lost my wife to the same problem and regret not paying more attention to what was going on. My house has been turned upside down since the day we bought our first computer and our quality time together disappeared. I would like to join support group same day you do, so I know someone with same problem is there to share with.

Please whoever is out there, send me info on how to order your book and what the heck, I'll take a T-Shirt too. How much are they?

Steve Anonymous in Detroit

To whom it may concern. I was once a very happy married man of 14yrs until the online chatting began. I have now been involved in a divorse and a very complicated custody battle because of it. My soon to be ex-wife began her chatting as a hit and miss issue. And eventually grew to be something that she could not do without. Once she found someone to talk to one on one it became a must do habit. It included constant online time, phone calls, picture sending and gift exchanging.

My 3 children have also been coaxed into chatting with her new found love. The real sad part of my story is that we both went to a marriage counselor for help. The only thing that came out of the sessions was that my wife was doing nothing wrong by spending 3-4hrs a day chatting with another male. This did not include the time spend on the phone to him at home and from her place of employment. But still I could not except what a proffesional couselor was telling me. How does a married man accept the fact that it is ok for his wife to spend much more time comunicating with a fantasy than with her husband and children as being "ok".

There is a lot more to my story that I would like to tell but do not have the time to do so. As for now I am trying to deal with possibly loosing my children just because I am a male. I wish someone somewhere could do something about all the horror stories caused by all the families that have been destroyed by these so called "normal" people who insist on breaking there families apart to satisfiy there selfish behavior.


There is never a winner in these cases only loosers the children. I believe it is to late for my situation since she filed for a divorse and is conviced she has fallen in love with her chat room friend, but I hope that it will not be to late for the other families who are in the middle of a similiar situation. I wish to hear a response from you or anyone else who has gone through what I have.

thanks and GOD BE WITH ALL OF US WHO HAVE SUFFERED

 My husband is addicted to Mplayers! He started off by just getting on there to play cards. He now has an internet girlfriend. I am so hurt.

He spend NO time with me and our children. We have been married 7 1/2 years and have two girls (3 and 5 years old). We live in Alabama and the girl he talks to is in Canada. He says it nothing and I am blowing it out of proportion. I read in the ICQ history their little talks. She is IN LOVE with him. He of course does not tell her back. BUT now they go in locked rooms on Mplayer and talk on the microphone. I am not allowed in the same room when they talk. He got so mad at me last week because I would not leave the room (I guess he did not want me to hear what they were saying) that he slapped me in the face. I called the cops and they arrested him. He was back home in a few hours. Now we don't even speak.

This woman thinks he is single. ALL the women he has talked too thinks he is single. He sent them all a fake picture, makes up fake stories about himself. I REALLY THINK HE HAS FALLEN FOR THIS WOMEN. He is always on the computer unless he is at work. He only gets about 2 hours sleep per day now. PEOPLE PLEASE DO NOT TRUSTS THESE PEOPLE YOU MEET ON THE NET, MPLAYERS, ICQ.

My husband left me for someone he met in a Chat Room and now I have to raise 2 kids under 12 on my own. He was on the computer when I went to bed at night. I thought he was working, but he was chatting to other women all year and finally connected with an emotional relationship, then called her on phone, then met. I threw him out, as I was sleeping alone at this point and he lost his job because he was on computer till 5 a.m. and couldnt get sleep or up for work.

I know I am better off without the bum now, but still all of you out there who think your husbands are working on the computer, please watch what they do. They can cheat right in your own home and dont have to leave the house. This is not the exception. It is very common.

I need to join your support group, and would like to order whatever I can to validate that what I am feeling is real and there are others like me that can help and relate to my situation. There is no place to go. My lawyer even thinks I'm exaggerating during divorce and my doctor says nothing of the kind like Internet Addiction exists.

Thankyou so much for recognizing this problem and creating a site for me to read that there ARE others like me out there.

 My wife aged 52 learned about chat rooms about 4 weeks ago. About 3 weeks ago she began corresponding with a 48-yr. old in Paris. Since that time she has spent up to 19 hours a day conversing. She now seems to be infatuated in that they say that they love each other. 2 nights ago she was on until 2:30 am (6:30 Paris time) which means that on a number of nights he has been up all night & then went to work. He apparently is a computer programmer. I caught the closing of one of his e-mails, & I will paraphrase it: I miss you, I love you, I think of you all the time. Apparently his wife is not aware of what's going on, which makes me wonder what sort of aloof relationship they have. My wife & my relationship is cold and she says that she doesn't want to stop or get counseling. Our 25-year marriage is on seriously rocky ground. Our 2 children & household are taking a far back seat to "him." Yesterday, she didn't even change from work, rather she immediately went to I presume is a closed chat room.

If anyone has experienced anything like this and has any suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.

Peter

My "significant other" and I live together and have a 3 year old son. I've had a computer for a year or so before I got online. I was facinated for about a month and then I just used it for work or research. He got one about 4 months ago. He knew little about computers and I made the mistake of showing him how he could chat with people.

Now he uses my AOL account to purchase things without my consent. He stays on the web chatting with women and others until 4 and 5 am. (He works a 3-11 shift) so he sleeps until 12 noon, gets up to eat and then naps from 1:30pm to 2:30 pm. He does nothing around the house. He spends little time with me or his son and expects me to accept this cyber-flirting. He accepts women's photos and in some cases has given his cell phone number out to be called.

I know that its a matter of time before he meets one of these women in person. He acts like I'm cramping his style. He expects me to have no spare time because I'm filled up with household and family cares but he can stay on the computer all night and sleep all day. I hate it and it has been the source of many arguments.

I'm sorry I ever taught him anything or that he got a computer. He says he's learning things but he asks me questions that tell me he's not learning a darn thing! Our house has become a pick-up joint and I cannot do a thing about it. I am definitely ready to leave!

Hi, I am a 45 yr old woman that became very addicted to sex chat rooms. It start out with me just being very curious as to what people do and say in these chat rooms. I am very much overweight and have a very low esteem of myself. I am very much still sexually alive, but had no one in my life to share those emotions with. I got involved in chatting with men in sex rooms. There I could be who I wanted to be, young, attractive and exciting. I met a man that I had come to enjoy chatting with until early hours in the morning, enjoyed receiving e-mails from every morning and every evening. We would write and plan times to meet in the sex chat rooms. He would send me email greeting cards, nasty cards and I was simply enjoying the attention. After a few days of chatting, he gave me his phone number and I would call him and we would talk about many things, but mostly phone sex for hours at my expense, because I wouldn't give him my phone number. When I received my phone bill, I didn't even open it right away afraid of the damage I had done, calling someone I didn't even know talking sex on the phone.

This relationship almost costed me my best friend. I had gotten to the point that I was lieing all the time to this friend, because I knew that they wouldn't have approved of what I was doing in these sex chats. My friend would catch me in many lies and I really felt bad about that, but I was also enjoying what I had with this man.

I finally told him the truth about me, or at least some of the truth and we have ended this relationship of sex chats, phone sex and emails. I still think of him at times, but I know that it was wrong and I feel ashamed of what I had done.

These chats rooms are addicting and if you are a weak person, it will cause you to lose loved ones that really matter and care about you for you. I found that out just in time....