Peters story

Name: Peter
Age: 37
Location: Humberside
Marital status: Married
Children: Two teenagers
Lover: One Name: Natasha
Age: 35
Location: London
Marital status: Married
Children: Two young children
Lover: One
I've been with my wife for 22 years and we are now like brother and sister. About five years ago, we stopped having sex.
I thought about divorce, but just couldn’t do it, I can’t trash my family – so I decided to live a double life.

I'm a successful 37-year-old man, with lots of interests and friends – but passion was totally missing from my life. My wife doesn’t want or need a physical relationship.

Around 18 months ago, I had a fling with a woman I met at a conference. She was just like me, married and drifting apart from her husband.

It only lasted a few weeks, but she told me about Illicit Encounters.

Six months later, I logged on and started reading people’s profiles. I worked out there were two types of women on there. Ones who were just in it for the sex and those who were just like me – unhappy in a relationship and desperate for a connection.

The website seemed perfect, like everyone on there thinks the way I do. No one asks for commitment, no one is going to say ‘leave your wife for me’ but we all want to meet someone special.

Amazingly, so many people say that if they hadn’t found a website like this then they would be getting a divorce.

I got chatting to a girl on the website and then on email. We had a laugh, we got on very well online and on the phone.

As we live around 350 miles apart, we agreed to meet halfway for drinks and dinner.

We had booked rooms in the same hotel, but because we got on so well and found each other so attractive, we ended up having sex, taking all the appropriate precautions.

I had a great time. I felt like all my pent up frustration had been vented. Despite that, we spoke three or four times after the meeting and agreed there wasn’t enough of a spark between us. We have remained friends and confidants ever since.

I found out later it was very unusual for members to sleep together on the first date.

When I logged on again, I got chatting to another woman. We really hit it off and started to see each other regularly.

We both end up in the same cities because of our work. The whole relationship is conducted in hotels or apartments we have hired.

We are both married and each realise the other has a lot to lose. She’s in her early thirties with kids a lot younger than mine.

There are not the usual relationship issues. There’s no ‘you’ve dented the car’ or anything like that.

It's like I have a completely separate parallel life, there is no cross-over at all.

I have to be very strong-minded about it. Part of the process was adapting my mindset and compartmentalising it. It’s the same way you separate work and home life.

I have a fantastic time with the woman I have met, but the word ‘love’ never comes into it.

But I would say we were soul mates. We have similar interests, and intellectually and physically we connect.

When it comes to the future of our relationship, who knows.

I feel liberated. The biggest issues in my mind for five years, that I had no sex, romance or passion in my life, are no longer there.

Not a soul knows about my secret relationship, and there’s no need for them to.

The rest of my life ticks along nicely. I still go on family holidays and the fact that I am having another relationship doesn’t trouble me in the slightest.

I would say using the website has saved my marriage.

Amy's Story

Fifteen-year-old Amy* had been hounding her mother to sign up for Internet service at home. “I kind of had a fear of it,” said her mother Sara. “I’d come home with newspaper articles I’d read about kids being lured by adults they’d met online.” But Amy was already using the Internet at the public library and school anyway. “She set up her own...account [with a password and free e-mail].”

Sara found out that Amy had been sharing many personal conversations with Bill, whom she had “met” in an online chatroom. They discussed her desire to live her life differently. Bill was “sympathetic” to Amy’s dreams and desires. By getting to know and sympathizing with her concerns or fears, Bill was able to break down her inhibitions.

When Amy didn’t come home one night, Sara knew something was wrong. So she began a search of Amy’s room. “I found a note [Amy] wrote saying she was 98 percent sure she was going to do this [trip]. The note said she’d be getting on a bus.” At this same time, Amy was at the bus station on the telephone with Bill. He was saying, “You can’t go home now, because I’ll get caught.” Amy felt compelled to keep him from getting apprehended.

Sara said, “I went to my local police station and tried to get them to go and get her. At that point they really didn’t want to do anything. They were thinking she had run away. [We had] the [man’s] real name and address...though at that time I wasn’t sure it was the real name. I couldn’t get anyone to go and see if this was a legitimate address. I found out that in our state runaways don’t have to return home if they don’t want to.”

Sara called the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). Sara said it was that call that got the police to check out the address on the ticket and “find out whether...this person actually existed.”

A detective had called to say the man’s address was a computer dating service. “It turned out this is where that man worked, and he lived upstairs,” Sara said. The police said they’d watch the location.

About midnight an officer called in and said, “A taxi just pulled up, a guy and a girl got out of it, we think it’s them.” He said, “We need to find out [from Amy] if she wants to stay. In order to get her [without her consent], we’d have to get a court order showing the reason why we wanted her out.” Sara had to talk to Amy on the telephone and promise not to press charges before Amy would agree to go home.

“We had a 36-hour bus ride back [home].... At first she was really upset. She definitely wanted to be with this man. He’d been telling her, ‘I’m in love with you, you’re the only one I’ve ever done this with, you just have to come with me and when I put you up it’s going to be great.’ We learned a lot. I learned a lot. I thought I knew a lot about my child.”

But something told Sara the ordeal wasn’t over. She said, “Three weeks later this man came to our home. [Amy] slipped out...with him. He had continued to contact her, and it wasn’t until this meeting that the man assaulted [Amy], in a motel in our own town.”

NCMEC contacted the police department who sent a detective to intercept Amy and Bill before they boarded a bus. It wasn’t until police approached them in the bus station that Bill told Amy she was not the first girl he’d contacted on the Internet and lured into meeting him in person. This was the turning point for Amy, what she’d needed to hear. Not until then could she tell her mother, “I can’t believe I got suckered into this.” Bill was convicted and sentenced to a year-and-a-day term in federal prison. Bill was released in April 2001 to the United States Probation Office where he was placed on probation for three years.1 Sara told us they still get calls with no one at the other end of the line.

We asked Marsha Gilmer-Tullis, who is the NCMEC family services advocate and familiar with Amy’s case, why she thought Amy succumbed to this predator — the death of a close step-grandfather, feeling sorry for Bill, adventure-seeking, fears about the new millennium? Marsha said, “All of the above. There are lots of issues, usually. Being a teenager is a very difficult time, and there are issues and concerns that teens are struggling with. It’s often so much easier to get online, where you’re anonymous and the other person is anonymous, and talk. You’re feeling dejected and unattractive, and someone’s telling you how wonderful and beautiful you are. They’re a teen and immature, and the adult knows that and takes advantage of it.”

It’s still difficult for Sara to tell this story. She’s doing so, “To keep other families from going through what we went through. [Amy]’s feeling is the same as ours. She wants to help other kids. [Predators] catch [teenagers] at their weakest moment, and they prey on that.”

We asked Sara what advice she’d give other parents of online kids. “Know who your kids are with. I would say, watch them when they’re online, but you can’t always do that. Don’t give out any addresses, don’t agree to meet anyone, don’t believe everything you hear and see — they may be telling you that they’re 15, 14, or 12, but they’re actually probably 30, 40, or 50 years old.... Don’t think that they can’t come to your house, because they can! Listen to your feelings. Make sure you know where else your child might be using a computer; at a friend’s house, library, or school.”