What sis he expect?
After a year away...
A US soldier discovered his missus had been playing away at home after spotting a suspicious "Mii" on his Nintendo Wii, the Evening Standard reports. The man, known only as Tony, returned from a year in Iraq to reports from chums that his wife had been cheating on him. He'd had the Wii for company while on service in Iraq, but …
I have a Wii and as cool as it is, I have to admit the audit trail of game time is a great tool for parents to monitor the amount of time spent playing on the Wii. In this case, it's also pretty damning to the wife as good ol' Tony can see all the nights someone was 'comforting' his wife. It logs the user, the game played and the amount of time played per game for the day.
I wonder if that would stand up in court?
Philanderer Lesson #1: Stay off the Wii unless you bring your own.
...especially for Ulrika Johnson's Wii. Hopes to double the capacity for Paris Hiltons Wii in the near future.
Announce Samsung, "our expert R&D dept hope to match the capacity of Paris herself in the coming months, it will be a difficult task but we think we're up to it."
If she didn't want to be alone for a whole year she could have made other arrangements; they do exist - It's called a divorce!
Cheating, OTOH is just sick, unjustifiable and if I'd just returned from a one year tour of duty in Iraq (putting my life on the line) to find my wife had been cheating on me... Let's just say I'd ignore the divorce and get medievil on her ass!
"Ever heard of "till death us do part"?"
Well, yes I did. But the wows say "love, cherish, etc etc till death do us part", there is nothing about "I will not have sex with anyone if you disappear for a year"...
Maybe, just maybe, Tony hadn't used the services of any local sex workers during his tour of duty (although I doubt it very much), but that still does not justify divorcing one's wife for a fleeting infidelity when he clearly wasn't available to perform his marital functions. No sympathy for this guy...
Having googled Mii (ok I know this is a Tech News site, but you could write in English) am I right in concluding that all that happened was some communication over a network ?
If so, the implication that one is "cheating" when one hasn't even met "the other guy", boggles the mind. Hey my avatar played bowls with your avatar. Big deal.
Girls can't have guys as friends and play on the Wii together?
If she's supposed to be seeing someone behind his back surely they'd have better things to be getting down to then a spot of Wii bowling.
Obviously a dumb cow as that would easily be able lie your way out of as a "just friedns" situation.
My girlfriend has lots of male friends - am I worried - am I chuffers.
(then again she's an actress and all her male friends are from the theatre, which we all know means they're gay)
Is the story missing something or am I?
The guy seems to have proof that his wife has played online bowling on the Wii with some guy he doesn't know. And now he wants a divorce? Damn, I need to cancel my WoW subscription before my lady realises there are (admittedly only a handful) of women on there...
I am not au fait with the intracacies of the Wii so apologies if I missed something here.
Well Mr Plouzhnikov I hope there is no Mrs Plouzhnikov as you clearly have no concept of commitment.
If a man and his wife have no intention of dedicating themselves exclusivley to each other then theres little point in getting married in the first place.
Abstaining from Intercourse for a year really isnt such a big deal (a phone call and some diy stimulation can be a good substitute) and if somobody thinks its more important to 'get it off' than to maintain the relationship they freely entered into then the marrige is probably not worth saving.
Besides its not just the Adultery its the lying about it afterwards.
...So, Vlad... do you approve of those policy statements from your bank/whatever that say "we reserve the right to change these rules to our advantage at any time and hold you to them, whether you like it or not'?
Because that IS what you're arguing - that any partner to a contract has the right to unilaterally change the rules at any time. Now, assuming that this was one of the common marriage ceremonies that uses the phrase "cleaving only to each other, so long as you both shall live," then that is a pretty definitive contractual term that should ONLY be altered by an agreement of both parties (and I have acquaintances who HAVE made those arrangements - but BOTH PARTIES AGREED to the amendment!).
Now, you seem to believe that if one partner is away for a year, the other has the right to look elsewhere for sex. Now, what's the LOWER limit? I mean, obviously, he was away for LESS than a year when she started in with her "bowling buddy". So is, say, six months a reasonable lower limit for you? How about three months? What if she couldn't go for a month? Is that okay?
Suppose - assuming that you ever find someone to marry you - that you know that your spouse can't go three days without sex, and your boss sends you out of town for a week... You will, of course, be understanding if you find your spouse and the plumber testing the shower together when you come home?
Finally, regarding your comment that, "Maybe, just maybe, Tony hadn't used the services of any local sex workers during his tour of duty (although I doubt it very much)...", I draw your attention to the words of George Bernard Shaw: "(A pessimist is) A man who thinks everyone as nasty as himself and hates them for it.”
I'd say there's two endorsement deals going here - the husband for the tracking, and the lover for Wii Sports. I mean, he's a professional bowler, and he liked Wii Sports bowling enough to play it regularly for long periods - sounds like a winner to me!
ross and anonymous coward - yes, you are missing something. You can't play Wii Sports online. Physical presence is required.
earlier anonymous coward - if cheating on your partner is "sick" and "unjustifiable", "get[ting] medievil (sic) on her ass" is at least doubly so. You're a pathetic specimen of humanity.
@Oli Wright: "On a tour in Iraq? You're an idiot."
If you think there are no prostitutes in Iraq you are a moron.
http://www.themuslimwoman.org/entry/baghdad-women-opting-for-prostitution-as-the-only-solution/
@Andrew Wood: "a phone call and some diy stimulation can be a good substitute".
Apparently, in Thailand you can be beheaded for that.
"Well Mr Plouzhnikov I hope there is no Mrs Plouzhnikov as you clearly have no concept of commitment."
You are wrong on both counts and also you've confused commitment with bodily functions.
@Mike Moyle: "So is, say, six months a reasonable lower limit for you? How about three months? What if she couldn't go for a month? Is that okay?"
I trust my wife to make right decisions, she trusts me to do the same. Whether I would consider adultery to be a breach of such trust, if I were in Tony's shoes, depends on many things, but the fact of adultery itself will not be sufficient.
If you're prepared to divorce a woman you're supposedly love just because she slept with someone under mitigating circumstances your marriang was not worth a penny in the first place.
And you don't have to be a pessimist to be a realist, Bernard Shaw notwithstanding.
You're just like the wife... approve the war first, then when things don't go your way, decide you were just kidding. You save-the-unemployed-homeless-gay-baby-whales-tree-huggers don't seem to understand that soldiers don't usually *try* to shoot innocent people. It's usually when they start to shoot at you that you kill them.
So much for standing behind our troops. Guess America learned nothing from Vietnam. Then again, the divorce rate usually skyrockets when the troops start to come home.
The couple must have had some pretty freaky marriage vows if they prohibit playing computer games with members of the opposite sex. Or perhaps in the US, bowling (or virtual bowling) constitutes sexual activity? I'm surprised Jack Thompson isn't calling for Wii Sports to be banned.
wasnt the mii found on his machine?, e.g. it had been created locally
dunno the wii very well, think its a bit of a crappy novelty device tbh, certainly havnt seen any games id want to pay for, or havnt got bored of after 20 mins of playing on a friends
then again shiney white plastic tends to provoke that reaction in me, ipods still and always will be shit to my mind
anyways, doesnt the storey remind ne else of that simpsons episode where marge goes bowling.....
I think a few people missed the point. The point was not that she played Wii Bowling with a friend while he was gone, it was that the Mii account showed when the philanderer was at his wife's home.
He also explained that his wife had had previous contact with this arsehole, and the picture associated with the account was suspiciously familiar.
And yes, any prick that messes with someone's wife deserves absolutely zero respect. We don't like the slimey gits like this because they have no decency whatsoever.
There are plenty of single men and women to meet and play with, there's just no excuse. Preying on married women and wheedling up to them with fake sympathy don't exactly shout good character.
Surely if a single person 'preys' on a married person it is the married person that is breaking the vows, not the single person - I speak as a married person who would be upset if my wife were doing naughty things, but could not find myself blaming the other party - they have made no vow of fidelity to me.
As far as 'slimy' or 'lacking decency' - I guess that might be fair if it was a friend who had an implied duty of care to me - but even then whilst I might choose not to be a friend any more, I still couldn't class it as their fault - the whole marriage thing is an exchange of some form of contract or commitment between two people. It is recognised generally by society, and (for the nutjobs amongst you) by whichever supranatural hoojamajoob you care to worship - there is however no legal commitment by third parties to respect it. Other than in those countries where there is of course. Any ethical or moral obligation rests upon the individual as society's ethical or moral obligations are generally encoded in law
I agree that folk who target other's vulnerability for any purpose are possibly (even probably) slimy and lacking decency - but there are plenty of those in sales, marketing, singles bars, all sorts of places. Even then you have to ask whether they are doing it because it's an easy target or because they have vulnerabilities themselves and can't behave better.
Oh, and Mr Judgement - the article does not say anything about previous contact - it states that his wife admitted a single kiss. It says nothing about evidence of anything other than bowling - which whilst possibly unwise is not prima facie evidence of anything except...bowling.
@Others: Mr Plouzhnikov strikes me as a socially and morally mature individual - you can generally tell by the inverse willingness to condemn other people without evidence.
@other AC - "So much for standing behind our troops. Guess America learned nothing from Vietnam. Then again, the divorce rate usually skyrockets when the troops start to come home."
You're right, it didnt' - that became clear at the point when it's executive decided to trump up an indefensible excuse to go make a situation it was responsible for worse and lie lie lie about it whilst completely failing to plan for the aftermath. Which is a shame because I consider the US constitution to be a fantastic model for the world which is completely undermined by the morally bankrupt policies followed by it's leaders.
I'll shut up now.
Sorry, just don't agree with that. BOTH parties are to blame. And actually what the article says was the guy grew suspicious because of a rogue Mii account.
It doesn't say he divorced his wife for playing Wii games with another man, which is clearly what a number of posters seem to believe. The implication, as far as I could tell, is that having previously confronted her about him, and having pretty cast iron proof this guy visited his home regularly while he was away, he now considered the "just a kiss" excuse to be a lie. We have no idea how things went after that, but obviously not very well.
I'm married too. Personally I would be more forgiving, but I still think people that go after married men or women have no decency. I wouldn't want that done to me, and I wouldn't want to do it to anyone else. I don't particularly care if that's being judgmental or opinionated, it's just how I feel.
Whilst I wholeheartedly agree that the war in Iraq is illegal and someone should be nailed to the wall for it, I find it unbelievable that you all seem to be taking it out on this poor bastard (especially you Kirk).
You seem to forget that servicemen don't get to pick and choose which wars they fight in, if the Administration says to go to war then that's what they have to do. Anything else and you may as well be living in a Banana Republic for all the faith in your military you'd be able to have.
So the question is, who failed who over all this? Certainly not the military, they were just doing what they're ordered to do. As for the civilian population, just how innocent can you claim to be? A few half assed protests against it and then you all went home and satisfied yourselves with simply whining about the illegality of it all. Where were the strikes? Or even riots? You could have done any number of things to get the Administration to reconsider, but you didn't. I guess it's just easier to take it out on the guys in uniform isn't it?
And John, the article does also mention that his friends had told him she was cheating so he did have other evidence to go on.
Excellent post, Mr Stirling - a sterling effort (IGMC).
Nick, while I agree that his friends reckonned she was "cheating", unless they had better evidence than the mere presence of the pro Bowler at the house, it is still only hearsay.
So it would seem that the suspicions of one's friends, evidence that the bloke was visiting to play Wii bowling and an admission of a kiss constitute irrefutable proof of sexual activity and infidelity.
Sorry, but BOLLOCKS!
I recently was out of town for a week and I know for a fact that people visited my wife while I was away, that does not mean she was having sex with them.
Strangely enough, men and women can hang out and not have sex. The bowler's presence in the house is not evidence of cheating, the Mii profile suggests they spent a lot of time just hanging out and playing Wii games - pretty hard to fuck and play Wii bowling at the same time so where is the evidence that anything untoward happened while they were not playing?
Mike Moyle quoted GB Shaw: "(A pessimist is) A man who thinks everyone as nasty as himself and hates them for it.”
I would suggest that that quote could well apply to "Tony" - he suspects his wife was being unfaithful because that's the sort of nasty thing he would do himself (and possibly did do).
Tony probably spent the last year bonking his way around Iraq, if not with the local prostitutes then with the female US military personnel (after all, the only reason they sent women "military" personnel over there was to fuck the male personnel and torture/humiliate POWs then get caught on camera doing it.) Now Tony's home, he naturally suspects his wife was as unfaithful as he has been and assumes that the mere presence of a man in is house is evidence of infidelity - despite her protestations of innocence.
I don't know if his wife was being unfaithful or not or if there is anything more than circumstantial evidence that was not reported in the article, but the suspicions of friends, evidence of playing bowling and the admission of a single kiss do not warrant evidence for infidelity.
Unless there's damning evidence not mentioned or an actual confession by the wife or the bowler we're not aware of, Tony's actions are nasty, suspicious and childish (whether or not his wife was actually cheating). Where's his trust and respect for his wife? I gather she did not deny spending time with the bloke (she admitted to a kiss) so where's the justification for believing she's lying about "just a kiss" or covering something up?
"bloke's been at your house, must be fucking your missus" - well according to the Mii there was a lot of innocent keeping-someone-company-so-they-don't-go-mad activity. According to the wife, there was no sexual activity.
You've got to be a retard to think that proof of playing an innocent game is proof of infidelity - a retard with a nasty nature who thinks everyone else is just as nasty.
The wife may well have been fucking the bowler between Wii games, I have no idea, but the Wii games and his presence in the house do not constitute *proof* of it. You'd need better than that to convince a jury "beyond reasonable doubt".
Word. I for one would not be in a relationship with someone who assumed because you were playing *video games* with someone else while they were away, that you must be having an affair. If you're that paranoid about friendships, time to get the tinfoil hat. If you do learn that someone is actually cheating, fine, go off the deep end.
Frankly, if I wanted to assme the risk of an affair and lie to my partner, I'd spend my time shagging rather than playing "Wii Bowling" (or maybe I'm out of touch with the quaint mating rituals in the suburban US).
As for those saying that the bloke was skanky for pursuing the lonely lady, it takes two to tango. And, if cheating did occur, did he even know she was married?
"I recently was out of town for a week and I know for a fact that people visited my wife while I was away, that does not mean she was having sex with them."
That's tru John, she promised me I was the only one :-)
In the original story I think she told her hubby that she'd only seen the other guy once, but the Wii said otherwise, if it was all innocent why did she lie?
The thing that bothers me is that the saddos spent their time playing on the wii when they should have been shagging!
Vladimir Plouzhnikov - Having gotten married fairly recently, I remember my wedding vows quite cleary. There was this VERY important part which goes along the lines of "forsaking all others".
You know...do not snog, bunk off with or any other sort of monkey business with somebody else.
Anyhow...once more, technology causes more unhapiness. Well..if you can really call the sorry little excuse for a games console "technology" that is. I await the flaming in eanrest :)
It's funny to see all the many people defending the wife here.
Not because she should not be considered innocent, but because the whole reasonning about it is flawed.
You take the partial information of the article, see that it contains enough to say that she probably did cheat, and then fail to consider what "probably" means.
Your thinking must go like "ok, she spent lots of evenings/nights with the guy, kissed him, the friends said she was cheating, and her husband was away one year. So she probably did cheat, but that's not proof, so the guy should not react like this".
That's pretty stupid.
"probably" does not, as opposedo that reasonning, apply to the real world, but to the lack of information WE have.
This means that probably "she did cheat and the guy has all of the information to prove it, only WE don't have it".
The direct consequence is that it is quite stupid to say "it's just a probability, so the guy should not react that way". It's a probability for us who don't have the information, not for him who does have much more than we do.
The real reasonning should go:
- It's quite likely, the way the news is breaking, that the guy has absolute and irrefutable proof of cheating, and WE're missing the "absolute and irrefutable" part.
- Among the 10 or so % chance he doesn't, there's a 9 in 10 (replace with whatever ratio you want) that she is indeed cheating but HE doesn't have proof.
- Then there's the odd few chances that not only do WE not have the info, does HE not have the info, but also the wife was not cheating. Hard chance of that, but that's not the point.
So in the end, because it is likely we are just missing the info, we should just assume the most likely thing, that is that the guy has irrefutable proof and we don't.
(note: not completely irrefutable but still a good point that is almost implied in the story - but there could be more - would be weird timings: what if the guy sometimes starts playing at 4am? at 7am meaning he spent the night there? at times during the day where the wife is at work, meaning he's at home even when she's not, implying he partly lives there?)
@Paul Murray - 'Inherently dumb' - Could you explain this amazing insight into marriage and fidelity in more detail please?
@Jon Tocker - '...and the admission of a single kiss do not warrant evidence for infidelity.' - So it's perfectly ok for your partner to kiss other guys? And please don't come back with 'it could have been just a peck' - as it plainly wasn't. A kiss other than a friendly peck is ground for complaining at the very least.
@Mary - Assuming of course you told him that you had a male friend over first - I think if you found out that he had a female friend over without your knowledge, you wouldn't be as forgiving as you claim to be.
@Vladimir Plouzhnikov - Discover the meaning of the word 'love; - in reference to marriage. Then check and see if your wife actually feels that way for you.
... is overrated. i personnaly think man is not meant to live a monogamous life. if it was in our nature to be so, no one would be cheating on any one else and marriage wouldn't be necessary. we would always be with the same person.
personally i think cheating's only considered wrong because our supposedly moral ethical society makes it so, and i will boldly proclaim that religion is the cause of all our jealous sufferings.
and no, those mormons and muslims are not in their right either. if the bloke can have all them wives, i certainly can't see why i can't have loads of blokes too... curse the man who decided monogamy was the fad.
"Discover the meaning of the word 'love; - in reference to marriage. Then check and see if your wife actually feels that way for you."
Thanks for the excellent suggestion. I've checked - she does.
Not so sure Tony did, though... :-)
@Mary "I think if my husband started kicking off and accusing me of slutting around and demanding a divorce, purely on the basis of finding proof that I'd played video games with a male friend a few evenings during the year he was away... I would consider myself better off without him."
Interestingly, that was precisely my wife's first reaction after she read this thread yesterday. Her second reaction was even less flattering to Tony and few other contributors here, so I won't quote her.
The comments on this post have sapped just about the last of the faith I had in humanity. Comments like "Cheating is a standard and predictable part of human sexuality" and "To be fair he's got off lightly" really wear at your soul. Where the munificence of Love?
Where is the shotgun
... love only equals shagging? i dont believe you should confuse the 2... love goes much beyond sexuality... you don't shag your parents and yet ideally you love them both equally. so, i think that if tony really loved his wife, and she really loved him, they would find it in their hearts to forgive and stay together. war aint fun, but you deal with it as best you can...
(ducks for cover...)
I think if you love someone enought to marry them you should not cheat. But also If you love someone enough to marry them you should forgive them if they cheat on you. I also think that how one cheats is important and it has to be sort of case by case. It is possible to have a meaningless extra marital shag and a couple could probably work through that buit it is also possible for two people (one married) to fall in love without shagging and then there would be trouble. For the record I am unmarried. Also, I don't think snogging counts at all (Unless I have missinterpreted the term) I have snogged girls who are just friends and even ones who are married, usualy drunkanly but it means nothing to either of us.
PS, War in Iraq was wrong but can't be blamed on the soldiers.