Influencers are Dumping Their Wives By Abandoning Them In The Wild In a New Trend Called Alpine Divorce

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The term ‘Alpine Divorce’ starting trending across social media after a TikTok video garnered over two million views. In it, a woman shared her experience of being left behind by her boyfriend during what was supposed to be a romantic mountain hike.

According to sources, the man wanted to reach the summit before other hikers and suggested they run. When she couldn’t keep pace, they became separated and he kept going without her.

Comments flooded in from women sharing eerily similar stories. “The comments were all about how this is a thing multiple men do. It’s so common it’s called Alpine Divorce and there are support groups for it…” one person wrote.

Another added, “All I can say is wtf is wrong with men??? Why would you ever consider abandoning someone that way? I’m mortified.”

The phrase itself isn’t new. It comes from a 19th-century short story by Robert Barr, in which a husband plots to end his wife’s life during a mountaineering expedition in the Swiss Alps, a grim solution to a marriage he couldn’t legally dissolve. The fictional tale now serves as shorthand for a real-world phenomenon: partners being deliberately left behind in remote, dangerous locations.

In January 2025, an Austrian man abandoned his girlfriend on Grossglockner mountain. She later perished from hypothermia.

Sources state that the climber was convicted of manslaughter, but the trial revealed something even more disturbing: he had abandoned another girlfriend on the same mountain two years earlier. That woman survived to testify against him, describing how “she was crying and screaming when he suddenly disappeared, walking ahead and leaving her behind.”

Social media users have started talking about the incidents. “POV: you go on a hike with him in the mountains but he leaves you along by yourself and you realize he never liked you to begin with,” one TikToker captioned their video.

Another noted, “Apparently men abandoning their partners on a hike or in the wilderness is so common it has a name: alpine divorce. It’s resulted in at least one de ath.”