Anonymity of social media sends many astray

It turns out I am the problem. I've been married for almost eight years. I have (an adult daughter). He has joint custody of a middle school daughter. To complicate matters, he lives in another state. We met online, and since his ex won't move, and I am a few years away from retirement, we are a commuter marriage.

I think that he has anger issues and is too critical of his daughter. He thinks I am too permissive and thinks my daughter takes advantage of me. We've gone to counseling before, but it hasn't stuck. He gets very defensive and goes on attack mode when I tell him he hurt me emotionally. I got tired. That's my excuse for finding my "first love" on Facebook the beginning of this year. I just wanted to reconnect. I thought I had no ulterior motive. Until we met for coffee and all the feelings came rushing back.

I haven't actually gone all the way with him, but now I feel like (Bill Clinton) -- depends on the definition of sexual relations. He is also married; he doesn't want to leave his wife. His mom just died last month, which is why I think this whole thing with me happened. I feel like I am taking advantage of his vulnerability, and I tell myself I will not contact him, but then I think of something I have to tell him and all thought goes out the window.

I was ready to leave my husband, not for my first love but because I was so tired of everything. I've requested time alone; I was too much of a coward to tell him that I was in love with someone. The good thing is he is willing to try and change. We are going to a new therapist, and maybe we will be able to salvage our marriage. So I must stop this other relationship. What I don't know is how to stop thinking of him or how to short-circuit the overwhelming response. I feel so ridiculous. This is wrong, and I know it. But I love him. He said he loves me, too.

-- N.W., San Diego

A long-distance relationship nestled into a blended family with a man whose defensive reactivity makes it hard to negotiate conflicts: Wow! You two must enjoy the challenge of complicated puzzles!

There is a surge of couples coming into my office whose crisis is about one or the other partner beginning some dalliance on social media. I'm not saying that every committed partner using social media is cheating or will cheat. But there's just something about social media that seems to connote availability or at least sows the seeds of potential availability.

First, I think it's because social media brings with it the illusion of anonymity: What happens on Facebook, stays on Facebook! Social science experiments show that when a human being is cloaked in anonymity, the potential for instinctual behavior (aggression/violence, lust, ego) increases dramatically. Increasing numbers of people behave on computers and cell phones as if their behavior is unknowable and untraceable (see Brett Favre's ... uh, well, just see Brett Favre.)

Second, I think social media invites us to explore otherwise ignored personas -- caricatures of self, idealizations and fantasies. It's an easy place to ignore life as life is, instead massaging feel-good illusions about how we wish life was.

I'm saying I hear your story more and more. People who would never go looking for unfaithful distractions, people who, in public, practice honorable boundaries around the issues of flirting and attraction, people who frankly would never be vulnerable to an affair in any other setting find themselves enchanted, "drugged" and then seduced in cyberspace.

Like you, they "had no ulterior motive."

You say the extramarital relationship is wrong but that you love each other. Then it follows logically, yes? Your feelings are irrelevant! Your duty is not to "stop thinking of him" or to "short-circuit the overwhelming response." Your duty is to categorically terminate the extramarital relationship. Your duty is to treat the feelings and thoughts like a recovering heroin addict treats her affection and longing for heroin. The only way to stop the thoughts, feelings and desire for heroin is to stop using heroin, thereby "starving to death" the thoughts, feelings and desire.

Then you can get back to work on the puzzle.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns also appear on Sundays in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Contact him at 227-4165 or skalas@reviewjournal.com.