There are a lot of men out there — women too, but mostly men — who are looking for a side piece without the consent or knowledge of their partners, be they wives, girlfriends, subs, doms, or whatever. No matter how perfect a relationship looks from the outside, there’s always going to be something on the inside that needs dealing with. In a healthy relationship, the people having the issue will deal with it together. In an unhealthy one, you’ll usually find one member of the relationship looking elsewhere for the attention he (or she, but most often it’s a dude) feels he needs.

I’m generally against long-distance online-only relationships because in almost all the ones I’ve been or seen someone’s been cheating on someone else. A long-distance relationship with in-person time? That’s less likely to involve cheating. But I’m thinking back to a friend of mine who, when we met, had an online-only dom living in Pennsylvania (we live in Georgia). She obeyed his orders, sent him pictures, followed his rules, and closed herself off to things she wanted because he craved control over her. He had no plans to ever meet her in person, and he was only available to talk at certain times. Sometimes he was completely absent when she needed him, and had no explanation — nor did he let her know in advance “hey, I’m going to be incommunicado for the next 36 hours, so if you need me, send me an email and I’ll reply if I can.” I was pretty sure he was cheating on his wife or girlfriend — if I’m remembering right, he told her he had a girlfriend, but I could be conflating that with someone else — and it drove me up the wall.

The worst thing he did: apparently she broke some sort of rule by playing in public without his knowledge, and her punishment was no play with anyone for a month.

And she obeyed!

Yes, of course I’m upset because this affected me — we had a scene planned — but even if it didn’t affect me it would make me crazy. This guy hasn’t earned anything from her; he’s basically using her as a long-distance online-only kink dispenser. She knew nothing about him (but shared her life details); she never got pictures or videos from him (but sent him plenty); she was living for his orders and, presumably, his praise as well.

Thankfully she figured him out and let him go, but not before the damage was done.

I’m almost one hundred percent sure this guy was cheating on someone with her.

Know the signs. Or, better yet, don’t get in an online-only long-distance relationship. It’s not worth it.

(This meme doesn’t really have anything to do with the post. I was looking for a funny related meme and it came up, and I couldn’t resist.)