‘Alpine divorce,’ the outdoor experience no one asked for

Incidents of men abandoning their female partners while adventuring in the outdoors are trending on social media. Women are recounting their experiences of “alpine divorce” — being left behind by partners who outpaced them and refused to wait, stormed off after a fight or, in the case of an Austrian climber convicted of gross negligence manslaughter, leaving an exhausted girlfriend behind to die on a cliff. “While the term 'alpine divorce' is new and driven by social media, the behavior it describes is not,” says relationship expert Dr. Jacquie Del Rosario. “At its core, it reflects emotional abandonment escalating into physical abandonment, placing a partner in a vulnerable or unsafe situation. That is not a trend. It is a serious relational red flag.”