We Wanted to Split Up. OkCupid Had Other Ideas.

Four years into our marriage, my husband found me on OkCupid.

I had only joined the site to check out his profile. He had joined to find someone else.

A friend helped me with the long sign-up process after we returned to my place from our weekly two-ounce glass of moscato at the Mission Inn wine bar. Neither of us were really drinkers — I was new to alcohol in my mid-40s — and this was as much as we would allow ourselves, this tiny swig of sweetness.

“What name should I use?” I said, curled on my couch as my friend sat at my desk with my laptop, feeling loose and pleasantly tired from the wine. “I definitely don’t want to use my own.”

“How about Glittergirl?” she said. She was a big fan of glitter; I often wound up with sparkles on my skin and hair after I hugged her. I wasn’t into glitter or anything makeup-related but gave her the go-ahead to type it in. I wasn’t planning to use the site for anything but recon.

“Glittergirl” was already taken, so we chose a rather crude alternative instead. This isn’t real anyway, we thought, so why not have some fun with it?

My husband and I had been separated for a couple of months at that point, and he had recently started seeing a woman he met on the site who was in an open marriage. We had considered opening our own marriage after I developed an obsession with a man I knew who lived across the country. My husband even ordered books like “Opening Up,” and I read them with great interest, but it became clear I