Netizens Wreak Havoc On Cheating Husband

Ever since his extramarital affair was exposed, Beijinger Wang Fei's life has been a living hell.

He does not even know the thousands of people who are making him pay for his deed.

It all started with the diary Wang's wife, Jiang Yan, left online before leaping to her death from their 24th floor apartment last December.

Jiang wrote of her misery after discovering her husband's adultery two months earlier.

Once word of that got out, the cyber-hunt for her cheating husband began.

Wang, in his 20s, soon found himself on top of a "most-wanted list" on the Internet. Net users sniffed out and placed his photos, addresses and phone numbers on major portals for all to see and abuse.

Expletives were painted on the door of his parents' home, accusing them of killing Wang's wife. Strangers contacted the company where Wang and his lover worked. The company later suspended the couple and they were reportedly forced to resign.

Half a year later, Wang still cannot find work. Most employers turn the man away, said his lawyer, Zhang Yanfeng.

"This has seriously hindered my life," Wang said.

The Beijinger is just one of many suffering the onslaught of the cyber-manhunt. The Internet phenomenon is known in Chinese as "renrou sousuo", or "the search for human flesh".

The cyber-manhunt usually starts with thousands of individuals on the Net self-mobilizing with one goal in mind - digging out the personal information of targeted individuals.

Has Technology Made It Impossible to Have an Affair?

What could be more family-friendly than a Nintendo Wii, a games console replete with motion-sensing technology and gleaming white purity? Just look at the marketing; the families bounding around the living room, gurning with unbridled joy as they compete with each other at video tennis and baseball.

The message is clear; a Wii is the new social hub, it coaxes gloomy teenagers out of their bedrooms and weans them off Grand Theft Auto. Wii players don't buy trench coats and shoot up the local burger bar. A Wii does not warp fragile young minds. In the Wii family, if little Johnny gets tetchy he can always give Daddy a working over on electronic boxing, no harm done. Wii stands for wholesome, healthy family values. It's even got brain training and fitness applications.

So the recent stories about the man in the United States who reportedly filed for divorce, citing his Wii as a catalyst for his wife's infidelity, would have had Nintendo's marketing Svengalis frothing at the mouth.

Returning from a blood-and-guts deployment in Iraq, the unnamed soldier is said to have plugged in his console, no doubt for some light relief, and uncovered evidence that while he was fighting the insurgency, his wife had been conducting her own secret manoeuvres. You see, a Wii has a gizmo that allows a player to store his or her personal profile, called a Mii. The soldier discovered that his wife's Mii had spent long evenings virtual bowling with another Mii. When he confronted her, she admitted that the mystery Mii was actually a lover. It probably never entered her mind that the games console could be anything but inert.

However, as more and more philanderers are discovering, modern technology has an increasingly unpleasant ability to trip us up, even the whiter-than-white Wii.

Long Deployments Can Fray Faithful Times

The crowd starts to build around 11 p.m. at the Big Apple. It's still early, in singles time.

Women wear low-cut shirts; guys wear short-sleeved shirts that showcase their muscles.

They eye each other, buy a drink and approach.

The scene is a part of American culture.

But here, about a mile from the entrance to Fort Bragg, there's baggage attached to the pickup game. At every table, it's a safe bet that someone has a connection to the Army. That might mean a husband or wife overseas.

The atmosphere -- good-looking people and absent spouses -- creates a place where people will be tempted to cheat. It's up to individuals to decide whether they'll act on those temptations, patrons say.

Infidelity isn't new to our society. It isn't new to our city. And it isn't new to the Army. But as many Soldiers and their families deal with multiple deployments, maintaining a military marriage is getting more difficult.

Despite the Army's efforts to provide therapy and programs, cheating continues. But therapists, chaplains and other experts say it isn't more prevalent in the Army than in any other segment of our community.

"We can look at it as an Army command issue," said Dr. Jerry Powell, a retired Army chaplain who runs a family life center off post, "but it really comes down to a husband-and-wife issue."

Those issues vary, depending on the husbands and wives.

In the Web of a Political Sex Scandal

The latest sex scandal to rock the Capitol has the usual elements -- salacious e-mails and marital infidelity -- but it is also a cautionary tale of take-no-prisoners political warfare, fought in the messy, even lawless, world of the blogosphere.

It began with a few e-mails posted on a western New York Web site, www.politicsny.net, that allegedly documented affairs between Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo, and women who were described as Capitol interns. The initial blog post came with a threat -- "Everyday we will publish another e-mail if Hoyt has not resigned the race."

Hoyt admitted Tuesday to "breaking my marriage vows," according to The Buffalo News. But he insists that he has broken no laws or the Assembly's rules banning fraternization between lawmakers and interns. The revelation brought quick action from the Assembly Ethics Committee, which launched an investigation less than 24 hours after the story broke.

State records show that the women believed to have been involved were not interns during the alleged romances, according to the News.

At the center of this story is Joseph Illuzzi, the man who posted the e-mails that started the storm.

Lawyer's Affair Costs $1.5 Million

A Mississippi attorney must pay $1.5 million for having an affair with a former client's wife.

Affirming a jury verdict in Rankin County Circuit Court, the Supreme Court of Mississippi found Ronald Henry Pierce liable to his former client, Ernest Allan Cook, who, along with his wife Kathleen Shorkey Cook, had hired Pierce to represent them and their son in a medical malpractice action.

The appellate court found Pierce, a solo practitioner, liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract and alienation of affection.

Pierce began having an affair with Kathleen Cook in September 2000 after her husband had moved to California to pursue a film career. Ernest Cook discovered the affair and hired a private investigator.

So What Did You Do Last Night? The Economics of Infidelity

Anyone married to an unhappy 55-year-old man who lives in the city could think about being suspicious that their husband may be having an affair.

Likewise, for anyone married to an unhappy 45-year-old woman who doesn't have a college education and regularly skips church may need to raise the question, according to a recently released University of New Hampshire study.

Those composite descriptions are based on a slew of demographic and economic factors that determine the likelihood someone will have an affair, the study found.

Bruce Elmslie, an economics professor at the UNH Whittemore School of Business and Economics, and Edinaldo Tebaldi, assistant professor of economics at Bryant University, jointly compiled the study, titled "So What Did You Do Last Night? The Economics of Infidelity."

Caught Cheating? What's Next?

Elizabeth Blackney says her heart goes out to Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Edwards, because she's been there, too.

Blackney was just 22 and pregnant when she found out in 1995 her husband had been having an extramarital affair.

"It occurred to me that I hadn't seen the phone bill come in the mail for a while," says the now 36-year-old mother in Bend, Oregon. A quick call to the phone company confirmed that her husband had requested the bills be sent to a post office box that she was unaware of.

After Blackney had the bills rerouted to their home address, she discovered what he was hiding: a long-distance relationship with another woman. When Blackney called the woman's number to investigate, she found out that her husband not only had a mistress, but that he'd told the other woman that Blackney had died in childbirth.

Are Men or Women More Likely to Cheat?

John Edwards was supposed to be one of the good guys – he seemed like the kind of husband who’d clean up around the house and take his wife to chemo. But it turns out he was yet another married man lying about an affair (with Rielle Hunter, a woman who produced his campaign videos) and he only came clean after being cornered by the media. His wife, Elizabeth Edwards, already knew about his mistress when the news broke and she has stuck by his side throughout the scandal. Why is it that we so often hear about high profile men cheating, but we rarely hear about women doing so? Perhaps it’s because societal structure combined with differing motivations for infidelity mean it’s simply easier for men to cheat.

Despite knowing that men stray, not to mention the oft-repeated statistic that most marriages end in divorce, women still put time and energy into making relationships work, especially when compared with men. There’s no doubt that dudes today are more invested in their relationships than they were in cavemen times, but their commitment doesn’t create mega-hits like Sex and the City, a show about four women talking about men, or reading articles like “The Secret Girlfriend Weapon,” which details psychological tricks to improve your couple bond, or “How To Emerge From a Fight More in Love,” actual articles from Cosmopolitan.com, whose print version is the top-seller on newsstands. By putting so much of their time and energy into the fairy-tale idea that relationships can be perfect, women set themselves up to be disappointed–or to at least look like big losers–when their man has an affair.

A-Rod: Marriage Over, Affairs Claims Irrelevant

Alex Rodriguez said he agrees with his wife on two things: Their marriage is over, and she's a good mother to their two daughters. But A-Rod said allegations of infidelity shouldn't bear on their divorce.

The New York Yankees' All-Star third baseman said in papers filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court that his five-year marriage to Cynthia Rodriguez is "irretrievably broken." But because Florida is a no-fault divorce state, Rodriguez contends that his wife's claims of affairs are "immaterial and impertinent."

In her divorce petition filed July 7, Cynthia Rodriguez accused her husband of "marital misconduct" including infidelity. She didn't mention any names, but A-Rod has been linked to pop superstar Madonna — both deny an affair — and a number of other women. A New York tabloid once labeled him "Stray-Rod."