Fatal Desire

Recently I watched a Lifetime original movie, Fatal Desire. A movie based on true story. This movie is about a divorced ex-cop who meets a young, married woman in an online chat room, and they begin a love affair. As his new girlfriend convinces him that she is trapped in a dangerous and physically abusive marriage, She ends up going to see him a couple of times to make him trust her and then lies bout being pregnant with his child. He goes to great lengths to protect her from her violent husband. After he commits murder, he is shocked to learn that the woman of his dreams is not at all who she seems to be.



The woman lies about her life, the baby and her identity, she used him to kill her husband so he would be out of her way to do what she pleases. When he finds this out, after she stops responding to his e-mails, and he finds her, he commits suicide. At the end of the movie there was an epilogue that said the lady in question is now serving a life sentence for conspiracy to commit murder in a state prison.



As we discussed in class online relationships can have problems. For the ex-cop, he reached every one of the 10 stages of an online relationship even trying to make it work. However, he was falling for someone who wasn't real. This is a great example of why meeting people online can be and issue. There is no way to decide if they are telling the truth.

This also brings up another topic we briefly discussed in class. Although she physically did cheat on her husband in the movie, their relationship started off innocently in a chat room. This is how many relationships start. So is that considered cheating or having an affair? I think that people who engage in online chats believe what they are doing isn't necessarily wrong because they're not having any physical contact with the other person. They also may use the excuse that these online affairs harmlessly fulfill a need which is not being met by their off-line relationships. I have heard of emotional affairs. I think that becoming close and personal with someone online would be considered an emotional affair.

I was sad to see that this movie is based on a true story because it proves that things like this can happen and affairs do occur. This shows how innocent communication on line could lead to harmful and inappropriate affairs.