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You cheat on the internet with your heart - engaging in intimate conversation with someone who is not your spouse and instead of your spouse.

I'm troubled by your equivalence of thought and deed. Lustful thoughts are the moral equivalent of lustful acts. Every human has lustful thoughts -- therefore every human is guilty of marital infidelity.

So we get two worlds from your view -- one world where your followers are always miserable and self-loathing because they know they are unfaithful to anyone they've ever loved. The other world where, heck, if that's cheatin' and I'm guilty of it, I might as well go the whole way on the same nickel.

Before someone cheats on a spouse, their hearts have gone before their bodies did.

Their hearts were gone before they turned on the computer the first time.

I'm specifically talking about married people meeting people of the opposite sex on-line, and that it's bad and wrong.

I think it means they didn't marry well. That happens, a lot.

Their hearts were gone before they turned on the computer the first time.

I agree. Doesn't make what they do on-line okay, which is all I'm saying. Turn off the computer and talk to your spouse, or go see a marital counselor.

I honestly don't understand where you're coming from when you say this. My followers? I think we're essentially in agreement, although stating it differently.

I think it means they didn't marry well.

If ever I do get married, I trust it's sufficiently "well" enough to cut my FReeping time by 4/5ths (or more, the first year or so, anyway =).

I feel guilty about neglecting my dog, for Pete's sake. Blows my mind that some surely must feel that way about a spouse or children.

Their hearts were gone before they turned on the computer the first time.

I'm specifically talking about married people meeting people of the opposite sex on-line, and that it's bad and wrong.

I think it means they didn't marry well. That happens, a lot.

I don't agree their hearts were necessarily gone before they turned on the computer. The computer could have been a legitimate tool for some legitimate purpose. However, without recognizing the temptation it can present, things can quickly become confusing.

It is the same with anything to which one chooses to give their time, but I think the internet holds an unrealized dimensional quality. And if there is already the suspicion felt(even, perhaps, not consciously recognized) that there is a lack in their relationship, the reality of what is truly pulling them to these outside interests could be honestly lost on them.

As for whether it proves they married well, isn't it true that even "good marriages" have ups and downs, conflictual periods that, if handled wrong can make it "appear" to have been a "poor marriage" from the start?