by Dawn Hawkins

Created on: November 09, 2009

The internet is a great way to do many things. It is also responsible for hurting many relationships. That isn't to say that it is the internets fault. It is the fault of the people who are using it. People have a tendency to take a good thing and use it for purposes that it wasn't intended for. The can turn a relationship bad in a matter of hours without any second thought to what is truly going on.

Here are some of the ways that the internet has damaged people's relationships:

Time

The internet has a way of sucking us in and not letting go. We get so involved in what we are doing on our computers that we forget we have another life. We spend hours at our computers and that means we are spending important time away from those we say we love the most. We don't do it intentionally, but we put off the people we love for other people in the computer whom we have never even met.

Affairs

The internet has made it too easy to have affairs. Not just physical affairs, but emotional affairs. Rather than facing our issues with the people we should be facing them with, we turn to others to provide that feeling of "it's okay". It's not okay. People get divorced too often because of an affair that the other spouse had with someone they have never even met. It is true that you can have friends on the internet. It is not true that you know that person well. You don't really know anything about the person you are talking to except what they tell you about themselves. Be careful of this type of affair. You could be destroying the best thing you ever had because someone made you feel good over the internet. Work on your problems with the person you are having them with.

Interest

We often find things more interesting on the internet than we do in real life. There is a serious issue when this occurs. If you can't find anything interesting about your real life, it may be time to re-examine the things that you do and the way you do them. It might be time to get off the computer and find real life again. Enjoy the company of your family. Remember what you loved about doing that before and do it again.

Porn

Pornography is all over the internet. There is a growing trend for people to put up picture and videos of themselves doing things they wouldn't never have imagined doing before. It isn't just Penthouse magazine anymore. It's about everything and anything you could imagine. This puts a great strain on relationship as one partner finds the porn attractive and the other finds it appalling.

The internet can be used for so many great things. Instead, it is used as a way to escape from our own personal realities. If you find that you are caught up in spending too much time on the internet away from those who love you, you have done a disservice to everyone in your relationships. Take a step back and think about the consequences of your actions. You may not like what happens in the end.

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