Tuesday, August 05, 2003

By L.A. Johnson, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Todd McMickle thinks revenge is a dish best served cold -- byte by vicious byte.

That's why he and actress Yelba Osario have created the Web site www.cheatinglovers.com.

"Wouldn't you go on the Internet to find out if the guy that you're dating has had a past history of cheating?" says McMickle, a computer consultant from Pasadena, Calif.

"Did he cheat on you? Is she sleeping with your best friend? Thought there was nothing you could do about it?" reads www.cheatinglovers.com. "You're a victim no more! Let us (and the whole darn Internet community) know this guy/gal's true colors."

The heartbroken, the cuckolded, the bitter can all anonymously post profiles of their cheating former spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends complete with photographs -- though revealing cheaters' full names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses is prohibited.

Through these posts, people share their pain and warn others.

I was stupid enough to think he wouldn't cheat on me, even though I knew he cheated on his ex-girlfriend. We had not even been married a year and he was screwing around with girls on the Internet and in person. The sad thing was, he thought I didn't know about it. I was just saving money before confronting him, so I could leave his a-- on the spot, writes a woman in Sacramento, Calif. about her 34-year-old soon-to-be former husband.

"There always seems to be a lot more women wanting to vent than men," McMickle says. The ratio is roughly 2 to 1, venting women to venting men.

The site has averaged about 1,000 unique hits a day and attracted more than 200 registered users since it went into operation a month ago. The posting of alleged cheaters' pictures is legal, McMickle says. Each alleged cheater's profile is reviewed and edited, if necessary, before it's posted. However, registered users are solely responsible for the information they post, according to the site disclaimer.

In addition to alleged cheaters' profiles, the site includes a famous cheaters photo gallery, a list of signs your beloved might be cheating, links to Web articles on cheating and even a place where alleged cheaters can write a rebuttal.

"We didn't want it to be too serious," McMickle says. "It's a very serious and touchy subject for a lot of people, but we also want to have a little bit of fun for people."

Listen to this one boys: After nine years of marriage she asked me to support her to finish her master's degree. I said "yes!" It was going to involve taking care of the kids three nights per week and on EVERY weekend. Nine months later, she accuses me of cheating on her and says she's leaving me, meanwhile assaulting me with insults and physically for the last few months, telling me I'm no good and a lousy husband and unlovable. Her best friend tells me she is cheating on me the whole time. I buy a keystroke recorder for our computer and find out it's true, writes a man about his 38-year-old ex-wife in Fremont, Calif.

Www.cheatinglovers.com is the latest in a trend of public pain sharing and revenge seeking, where matters of the heart are concerned.

"People who post here are largely fueled by hurt combined with anger and a desire for revenge," says Ruth Houston, author of "Is He Cheating on You? 829 Telltale Signs." (Lifestyle Publications; $29.95) "I wouldn't ordinarily encourage infidelity victims to do this sort of thing unless doing so will diffuse their emotions and prevent them from pursuing more violent alternatives."

"It is innate ... to want to inflict retribution or revenge on someone that has betrayed [you]," says Bobby Goldstein, former divorce lawyer and executive producer and creator of the syndicated TV reality show "Cheaters," which airs after midnight Sunday at 12:30 a.m. on WCWB, Channel 22.

Investigators for the show conduct video surveillance of alleged cheaters. If they obtain proof, they show the evidence footage to the wronged party and capture the brokenhearted confronting their cheating partners on videotape.

"Only lately has there not been any remedy whatsoever for a complainant who has been betrayed and deceived by a lover and spouse," says Goldstein, who is based in Dallas. "There used to be all kinds of [legal] remedies for [infidelity], but since the repeal of all statutes against it and common law repeal of all tort cases one could bring for it, there is no remedy.

"You've left them without a bullet in the gun," Goldstein says. "Guys like me and that Web site are doing something for a class of people that everybody else has forgotten."

"Cheaters," now entering its fourth season, has exposed more than 160 unfaithful.

"We'll run out of film and money before we run out of adultery," says Goldstein, who receives more than 40,000 requests a year for domestic relations investigations, though the show can take only 60 cases a year. "Think about what the Puritans did; this is just an electronic scarlet A."

Wanting revenge is normal, but Houston stresses that people hoping to reconcile with their cheating lovers probably shouldn't try to publicly embarrass them via Web site or television.

"Unless you're absolutely sure that you want no part of that person or relationship, I don't think that's a wise idea," says Houston, a writer based in Elmhurst, N.Y. who wrote her book (with its own Web site, www.IsHeCheatingOnYou.com) following the breakup of her own marriage due to infidelity. "Just because there is infidelity in a relationship does not mean that relationship is over."

Cheatinglovers.com is an equal-opportunity Web site, with cheaters galleries for men and women who've cheated on the opposite sex and the same sex. There's even a category for people to write up their noncheating former loves who are just losers. And any party can post a profile.

If you live anywhere in a three-state area surrounding Montana, your husband is not safe. This woman has been responsible for the breakup of two marriages. She does not make a living for herself and is looking for your husband to do it. She broke up two marriages in a very small community. She is currently single and very dangerous... writes a woman about the 38-year-old woman who had an affair with her husband.

"A lot of people have a lot of hurt and anger, and if they don't get an opportunity to release that somehow, they go on with the rest of life being bitter and angry," McMickle says. "To have an avenue to release that, I think that's good."

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