I have just recently started going into chat rooms. At first it was a lot of fun meeting new people. Then I met a man who, like me, is married. I was curious about the whole "cybersex" deal, and we started chatting often. The problem is I feel like I'm getting emotionally attached to this guy. If I don't see him online or we miss a scheduled chat, I feel depressed for days. This is crazy. While my marriage has problem areas, I love my husband. So why am I feeling this way? He's a complete stranger, just a name on the computer. Yet I just can't stop looking for him online.

K.M.

You may think you're playing with a computer, but you may be playing with fire ... at least where your marriage is concerned. I commend your pausing to examine your behavior.

People can develop strong emotional attachments to online buddies even if they never meet face-to-face. Sometimes cyberfriends may provide support and encouragement lacking in "real" life. In other instances it may feel safer to reach out and share information (and time) with someone whose physical being may be halfway across the country ... someone who not only has never seen you, but may have no idea of your real name or living situation.

Where opposite-sex or romantic cyber-relationships are considered, the issues grow more complex. Online chatting or emailing may provide a means of getting to know many things about other people, but we are still limited to what they share with us and what we project onto them. (And the less we truly know about a person, the more likely we are to project onto him or her our unconscious needs and desires.)

Cybersexual relationships between two people who are not married to each other might be considered a type of "emotional affair." The individuals are developing strong emotional relationships (with sexual overtones) outside of their marriages. The concept of emotional affairs predates computer chatting and can describe any extramarital relationship that contains a romantic element without actual sexual contact. (Once sexual contact occurs, of course, it becomes a garden-variety extramarital affair.)

Emotional (or cybersexual) affairs may not involve one person's flesh touching another's, but they can contain all the other marriage-damaging aspects of "traditional" affairs, including preoccupation with the other, neglect of and/or criticizing the spouse ("My wife/husband just doesn't understand me"), etc. Whether or not real-world sex occurs, an emotional connection is being cultivated outside the husband-wife bond, instead of that energy being directed to solving any problems inside the marriage.

If married clients of mine reported having a cybersex relationship, I might ask them if they loved their spouses and wanted to stay married. If the answer was yes to either or both questions, I'd recommend ending the cyber affairs and addressing whatever problems existed within their marriages. Affairs usually have to end in order for any progress to be made in the marriage. Otherwise, those select moments with the other man/woman are always going to seem more exciting or interesting than are those with the person whose dirty underwear we see strewn around the house.

Since you indicate that you love your husband, why not make the effort to address some of the problems in your marriage -- whether through professional counseling or heart-to-heart talks? Perhaps it would help to examine what needs your online relationship has been meeting in your life, and see if there are other, less potentially inflammatory ways to meet those needs offline. Good luck.