It's becoming more and more difficult to distinguish virtual world events from real life. And as evidence of that, the big news this week is a divorce in the UK that is currently in the works. SkyNews described it this way:

Amy Taylor, 28, cited unreasonable behaviour in the court papers, describing how their three-year marriage came to an end when she twice walked in on her husband pretending to have sex in an online game.

Her estranged husband is now engaged to one of the women he had an 'affair' with on Second Life - even though they have never actually met in real life.

One irony here is that Taylor met her husband, David Pollard, in an Internet chat room. And she is also involved in Second Life.

The story also appeared in the Telegraph. That paper looks a little more closely at some of the details, including Taylor's hiring at one point of a detective in Second Life to investigate her husband's behavior in the game - and try to trick him into infidelity (again, in the game).

The affair even made the Huffington Post. HuffPo talked to a expert on how the Internet impacts relationships:

The online drama shows how emotionally invested some people have become in their virtual identities, said Ellen Helsper, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute who has studied the impact of the Web on relationships.

"For a while there was this impression that as long as it's online, it doesn't matter. But research has shown it's not a separate world," she said, adding that infidelity was "just as painful, whether it's electronic or physical."

Taylor's divorce could be finalized as early as next week.