Here's my $.02 that you asked for. The short version is that I agree with the others that mentioned it's easier for H. If he's rejected on-line it's not personal. It's all fantasy so he can steer/justify the fantasy R or story any way he wants. There's always a "happy ending".
I suspect that he never followed thru with actually meeting the people in person. It would require too much work. Way more pressure and work than working with you on any problems and he barely did that if at all.
Here's the long version: Like said I could relate to H. When my M was having problems (mostly just communication/conflict avoiding), W was not in the mood for ML very often. Early in the M I would MB once in a great while. W was very against it. Thought it was gross. When our problems got worse I used the internet for relief from those lusty feelings. A lot easier than spending all day(s) flirting and trying to get W warmed up for some later time when we'd maybe ML if she wasn't too tired. I didn't join anything on-line that allowed communication or anything like that. Just looking was enough.
As far as I know she never definitely knew about my pseudo addiction but she suspected. I know she felt the same as you do know. Why bother with fake sex when I could have gotten the real thing with her? My answer is that it was less work. I had pretty low self esteam at the time. I was very ignorant in the R department and how F think and talk. We didn't talk much about wants/needs in our sex life. She felt that if we were soulmates then I would just know what she wanted/needed. Yeah no wonder I'm in the mess I'm in.
I realize that the dynamics of my sitch are different than yours GEL but H's reasoning/justification seem very much like mine. I also suspect that he might slip somewhere down the line and be tempted by the on-line stuff. Just keep that in mind. I could be wrong though. Just my opinion.
To add to Chrissy's point about her H wanting to hide his MB. Guys are brought up hiding it through puberty. We're told a real man doesn't do that stuff. Or if we are doing that then our W/GF is not doing something right. Don't want to hurt her feelings. Just explaining why he was confused by his realization that you weren't bothered by it.
