Sl relationships What do you get out of it?

Hi Everybody

Anyone remembers this thread? A real soap....
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Regards

Maggie

I have been single for 14 years, having come out of a very violent marriage so many years ago. I never intended to meet someone in SL. I am an avid rper and despite my non intent I did meet someone who lives 3000 miles away from me. He at the time was married, but the marriage had been dead for years, they had remained together because it was comfortable, familiar, and better for their now grown children. Neither he nor I intended to be anything more than friends in sL, neither looking for a relationship. But over time, and zillions of hours of voice chat, and interacting in SL, we decided to take the plunge to meet in real life. He flew here to the US and we spent nearly 3 months together. We found that what we had in SL definitely transcends SL, and since that time he's made two more visits here, with plans of us to marry in rl some time this year. I never in a million years would have thought I would meet someone at all, much less to do it in a virtual world. Since the first meeting, we have used SL to maintain our relationship. We spend several hours of our free time in voice chat while engaging in our activities in SL, We have been married, had children (both prim and sl avie kids) and build amazing relationships with many people we call friends and family. Today, 18 months since we "met" in SL, we are still going strong, and getting stronger. SL gives us an outlet to bond, and cope with the distance that we find tears at our hearts every single day. Long distance relationships are very stressful, and when you begin adding the immigration process to all of it, it becomes even more stressful, all of the waiting, the filing, the money, the steps to help us be together is very difficult, but every minute worth it. My soul and his are the same! We both believe we know each other better than we would have, had we met in rl first, because from the beginning the online medium, and the use of SL provided and forced us to really get to know each other and to talk and communicate.

He's nearly divorced now. We keep having different experiences in SL to help us cope with the long distance, we are completely 1000% devoted to each other and wouldn't even glance at anyone else in SL. When we met, his real life wife had been in an sl relationship for over a year. They slept in seperate bedrooms, and just basically co-existed. When he and I decided to possibly go rl, then he moved out of the family home, continued visits with his nearly grown children, and we continued to grow and bond more. He's made a total of 6 months worth of visits to me in rl now so far.

Not a day goes by that I don't miss his physical touch, or wanting to be next to entwined in his arms. SL helps us to a degree to cope with those yearnings (and I don't mean sexually necessarilly), by giving us an outlet to be together, have fun, share, love, and enjoy each other. I don't know if our long distance relationship would have developed or continued with out SL, with out the experiences we can share with each other to help us cope with the seperation. I have seen many in LDR relationships give up due to the toiling caused by the immigration process and the distance. Korky and I have been able to over come that issue using SL to bond even closer together, and we put hundreds of hours in a month to do this, and work hard at our relationship. We have had our arguments, and we work them out, something we know transcends into real life, because both of us are ultra aware that problem solving and communicating is crucial to our future marriage.

When he finally gets here and we are together, I think we both will still be together in sL as a couple, but we may be around less frequently. When he's been here with me at length, the computer rarely goes on!

SL relationships are quite real. But I do think there are also rpers who can detach themselves and its strictly rp. One example is many of the Rpers in Gor who own a slave or a slave that is owned, they can detach if they are roleplayers only. Lifestylers on the other hand may find they invest more emotionally.

BTW...on Sunday when we couldn't log back in minutes before we were do to perform our SCottish handfasting I was posting to this forum and received wonderful encouragement and support. For those interested, we had our ceremony filmed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxIg4YVogYw

When Korky and I marry this year we intend to do it as a Scottish Handfasting with full Scottish Piper playing as we did in sl.

Love your correction, you must have been reading my mind.
/me cups his face in her palms raising his head and slowly grazes his soft gently lips

I came onto SL to explore fantasies that I can't explore in RL. Yes, you don't get the physical element, but then imagination plays a very big role in RL sex - it's just 100% imagination in SL.

And yes, I have fallen in love in SL. I'm not sure what it all means or where it's heading, since the SL love of my life has no existence in RL (he's a character in SL, and although some people consider their RL and SL selves to be the same thing, this character does not), so sometimes it's a bit scary. But then again, maybe we're both learning some valuable lessons about relating emotionally. Who knows? I'm watching this space

Most people who are in SL relationships are not happy and content with their rl relationships.

Well thats very true.

And a lot who claim to be when you first meet them, as you get to know them longer, really aren't.