Nearly two-thirds of divorces are filed by women, and after the recent Ashley Madison scandal, women everywhere are more ready than ever to split, according to report by local affiliate WTVF Richmond.
Last week’s reveal of the more than 32 million members of extramarital adultery website Ashley Madison has led to an unsurprising onslaught of divorces. The leak, initiated by hackers posing as “women” on the site, revealed that nearly 95% of the website’s users were men, who found their name, credit card numbers, emails, home addresses, even their sexual preferences leaked and public when the news broke last week.
On the flip side, Virginia Attorney Van Smith reports that of the nearly 10 divorce-related calls he receives every day, 95% of the contacts are female. Smith describes that the Ashley Madison calls take on two different portraits of marriage:
“…They are either part of this multi-year problem in their marriage and this is the final straw, or for another significant portion they had a relative good marriage and this came out of nowhere and sideswiped them.”
Smith noted that usually, the fall is a slower time for divorces, since couples don’t want to negatively impact their children so close to a new school year.
Unfortunately for adultery vigilantes everywhere, the hackers could be facing a decent amount of time for their crime. If they’re found guilty, they could be facing up to 20 years in prison for breaking laws concerning wire and computer fraud, extortion, and racketeering.
For the men and women whose Ashley Madison accounts were uncovered — and whose marriages may be in jeopardy as a result — the leak serves as a reminder to us to be careful about what we do online, and who we share our information with.