An affair in an Internet-based virtual world is ending the real-life marriage of a British couple.

Amy Taylor, 28, filed for divorce after she found out that her husband in the real life was cheating on her. No, not in the real life; in the virtual one, a 3-D online world called Second Life.

Taylor said she caught David Pollard, 40, having sex with a virtual woman, a Second Life resident. "I looked at the computer screen and could see his character having sex with a female character. It's cheating as far as I'm concerned," said Taylor gnashing her teeth.

Pollard and Taylor know each other since 2003, when they met in an Internet chatroom. They are now separated because she feels betrayed. She went nuts when discovering his affair. “I was so hurt. I just couldn't believe what he'd done," she told the Western Morning News. "It may have started online, but it existed entirely in the real world and it hurts just as much now it is over."

However, Taylor (known as Laura Skye in the 3-D world), is convinced her husband (Dave Barmy) hasn’t been disloyal to her in the real life. How can she be so sure? Well, she admitted having hired Markie Macdonald, a private investigator on Second Life, in order to track his activities. "He never did anything in real life, but I had my suspicions about what he was doing in Second Life.”

In the real life, Barmy, whose avatar was a sharp-suited, long-haired man, passed the test with flying colors. So Skye, a slim, dark-haired young woman, decided to make up with him and to tie the knot. In the real life, they got hitched in 2005. And now they are to divorce.