How just looking at a dating app can destroy your marriage

A staggering 4 in 10 people on Tinder have partners. traumatic tales of the women who ‘swiped right’ and

THEY are the words I have heard countless times in my two decades as a divorce lawyer: ‘My marriage is over.’ The voice of the wellspoken fortysomething businessman and father-of-three cracked over the phone as he explained how his wife had betrayed him.

To make matters worse, when Greg discovered what Helena, a florist, had been up to, first of all she claimed it was ‘just a bit of fun’ and then said: ‘Nothing happened… it was nonsense.’

But her actions were, he insisted, unforgivable.

And as soon as Greg mentioned he had proof of his wife’s duplicitous behaviour, I had a hunch about what might be coming next. It was not an envelope stuffed with grainy photos of some seedy tryst. Instead, he had the very modern and very real equivalent: a screenshot of his wife’s profile on a dating website. Their marriage was the latest victim of what I now describe as Generation Swipe.

As head of family law at a solicitors’ firm, I have become used to being handed computer printouts and hard drives packed with website screen-shots from clients who have been deeply wounded by their partner’s social-media activity.

In the past six months, our department has seen an almost 50 per cent increase in enquiries triggered by married people who have caught their spouses browsing dating apps such as Tinder.

And, judging by the cases I’ve handled, it’s not only husbands who are straying – it’s the wives too.

GREG had discovered Helena’s secret one afternoon when she was distracted away from her iPad by the doorbell. Glancing over at the tablet, he saw a picture of an attractive man – and on closer inspection he realised that it was a profile on a dating app.

Horrified, he confronted his wife and she came clean.

She tearfully confessed to having signed up because she was ‘curious’ after some single girlfriends mentioned it, but that as soon as the approaches from other users came flooding in, she became hooked on the attention and how being desired – even in a virtual way – made her feel.

‘She said she didn’t want to leave me, or even cheat,’ says Greg. ‘And she hadn’t met any other men. But I suppose our own marriage was in a bit of a rut. Sex had become functional and we were both absorbed with work and the kids. I know she hadn’t physically been with another man but it was the secretive way it had gone on for months, and the fact that on some level she was looking for that kind of attention from someone else that I just couldn’t get over.’

There may well be some people who believe such behaviour, although regrettable, is hardly a reason to call time on a relationship. And some might not even consider it cheating.

But it is, says Ammanda Major, head of service quality and clinical practice at marriage counselling service Relate.

‘People do it behind their partner’s back, perhaps when bored, in need of some comfort, or after a row with their partner,’ she says.

‘So it is underhanded. We are seeing so many people now whose relationships are in trouble because one of them has been browsing