Managing RL and SL relationships

These may sound like really odd questions...

If you're partnered in RL, and partnered in SL to someone that is not your RL partner, how do you manage it?

Do you find your RL partner suffers in terms of your SL time?
Does your RL partner know that you have a SL partner?
How does he/she feel about it?
Does being partnered in SL cause problems in your RL relationship?

Please discuss.

Edit: I want to clarify something - this isn't about me. I just came across someone the other day who was married in RL to one person and partnered with someone else in SL. Took me a few days to think about it.

My SL partner is my RL partner but having seen and contributed to many threads of this theme I can say as long as your RL partner is told the truth and they are really .. REALLY ok about it, then it can work ... but it must take a very special person or an entirely indifferent one to really not mind. Time spent with an SL 'partner' is time you're not spending with your RL one. This can hurt all parties.

My SL partner is my RL husband so I just suffer in terms of that

Is it cheating?

LOL...that's a discussion for another thread.

I'm just curious to see how other people handle it.

“There’s no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves”

-Frank Herbert

Wisest advice I've heard on this (and many other topics), from someone very special to me is: "RL comes first."

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I have been stunned by the real emotions SL has given me since getting involved six weeks ago.

I'm single in RL (AND VERY BITTER!!!!!!) and I would definately not feel comfortable having an SL relationship if I had an RL partner.

That's probably just me and I'm sure others are different.

For me it wouldn't matter if I did have an RL partner (NOT THAT *THAT* WILL EVER HAPPEN - THERES NO CHANCE THAT MY WITHERED HEART COULD LOVE AGAIN!!!) that didn't mind me having an SL partner, I just wouldn't feel right. I would definately feel unfaithful. Not to do with sex or anything like that, but because of the sharing of emotions.

Plus the fact that, if I was still married (WHICH THANK GOD I'M NOT - AND IF I EVER SEE HER CHEATING FACE AGAIN ...... !!!!) I probably would never have 'found' SL.

I'm glad you asked this question! I'm interested in the thought of others.

Manage it?

1- Make sure you have a lot of free time.

2- Make sure you enjoy drama.

Keeping one (happy) relationship going is already time consuming as it is, why would you want two?

I haven't had any experience with this situation, but I think I would find it very hard to have an SL partner and a RL partner both. I think even if I am pretending in SL my emotions are still going to be involved in both worlds.
Personally I would consider it cheating because of the emotional side of things. This is only me playing both worlds though.
I would probably be ok if a RL partner had a partner in SL. I wouldn't be over the moon mind, just ok. I know that not everyone links the two world like I do. My emotions get very involved and it is hard to distinguish for me.
This is only my opinion though, based on knowing me and how I think I would feel. YMMV. Everyone is different.

Yes thats what I was trying to say but got consumed by bitterness instead.

Well put!

Aww.
/me pats Sandy's back.

Anyway, I don't think you can truly balance such a situation. Someone is going to "lose" at some point, and it will be very drama-filled and annoying.

~Ava

Well that depend, i would consider it's cheating

Truly a slippery slope and a quagmire.

I say stay away from it, unless you know for certain that your RL partner is completely comfortable with you having another 'virtual relationship.' And I mean completely...

/me gives Sandy a big hug

Having a sl relationship with someone other then you're partner in rl shouldn't interfere with each other.

Many rl couples here that have relationships in sl with other people and they don't have any problems with that.

I dated a female and I would see and talk to her rl husband. There were never any problems. Only being insecure of your rl relationship brings problems. If you're an insecure person then you have problems.

Bloody hell, you're telling me.

No pressure then?

I was fortunate enough to have had a SL partner for a time, and I have a RL partner, too. It wasn't something I sought or expected, and I was well aware that it's sailing trecharous waters.

Important things: Know what is SL and what is RL. Be honest with yourself about that, and about your feelings. Make sure your RL partner is ok with what's going on. No, really ok, not just saying they're OK because it's what you want to hear.

For me, it was of paramount importance to be both the SL ad RL me. And to make a distinction. I had a very strong sense with my SL partner tht it was "the four of us," and we knew when conversation was between our partnered avatars and when it was between ourselves as RL people behind keyboards who had knit a warm, virtual friendship. The advantage of this is that when our partnership dissolved, as painful as that was, we still had the friendship that had developed between our RL selves.

As for the question "Can your RL partner really be OK with a SL partnership?" I believe that under the right circumstances that can be the case. My RL partner, weeks after the SL partnership dissolved, said something incredibly touching: "I liked it better when your avatar had a partner." It was touching to have the level of enrichment that the SL partnership had brought to my life acknowledged in a RL way like that.

But that's not to say that every moment was easy. You have to keep lines of communication wide open on both fronts -- as you do in any healthy relationship, really. And remember in every decision you make both large and small that your RL partner will be there long after the inevitable cruel winds of SL fate make the SL partnership end.

That's pretty cool

Sorry for the loss

MY RL husband is my SL partner, and that's the way I like it. I wouldn't feel comfortable having a partner in RL and a different partner in SL. Like some have said, my emotions would become too involved, and I think that you should only share a really deep intimate emotional connection with one partner at a time. And as Ricardo said.....I'm not insecure in my relationship, but I wouldn't want my RL husband being partnered to someone else on SL, either. You know...there was a case around where I live last week of a man who brutally killed his mother-in-law, during what he "claimed" was a blackout. And mother-in-law jokes aside, the reason was because his wife had been having an affair, which was supposed to be over, but he overheard something which led him to believe his MIL was convering up the ongoing affair for his wife's sake. So.....because of cheating, a woman is dead, another has lost her mother and husband, children have lost their grandmother and effectively their father, and a man will probably spend the rest of his life in prison. Like I tell my husband.....cheating is never, ever pretty and never, ever worth it. And that counts in emotional cheating, too, in my eyes. And having a separate partner in SL is emotional cheating. However, that's just the way my husband and I handle it. Other marriages are based on different circumstances and people and maybe they find nothing wrong with that. <shrugs> and that's up to each person to determine for themselves and for their own circumstances.

I'm happily single in SL and intend to stay that way. If I did want to partner someone, though, I wouldn't let any RL relationships get in my way.

And I'm not telling whether my RL is single or partnered!!!!

Hmmm. Depends if said RL partner has their backside in WoW, or glued to XBL ...

I know enough game widows.

/me gives Sandy a hug too

(See, this is working for you Sandy, run with it!)

Ohh Sandy, I still love you and always will.