'Alpine divorce' is a dark new dating term that is worryingly becoming more common

A disturbing new dating term gaining traction is called the 'alpine divorce' and it refers to some really quite dangerous behaviour.

Many couples like getting out in nature together, one can scarcely move on Hinge for all the profiles of people who claim they spend their Sundays on a hike, but the 'alpine divorce' takes a very scary twist on this.

It involves a couple going out for a trip together in nature only for one of them to just abandon the other out there in the elements, which sounds crazy but here we are.

Psychotherapist Stephanie Sarkis told USA Today she had dealt with clients who had experienced this dangerous form of behaviour.

The psychotherapist, who specialises in narcissistic abuse, said an 'alpine divorce' could be very traumatic for the person abandoned by their partner as it would cause them all manner of distress.

"I've seen it a few times. For a lot of people, that's their worst fear: Being in an environment where we don't have control over what's going on and being abandoned somewhere," she said.

"I think we all have a fear of abandonment to different degrees. Being out in an area that you do not know, where there's wildlife, where you could easily get lost, especially if it's unmarked, that's a real fear for people."

Getting an 'alpine divorce' is being abandoned by a partner while out in nature with them (Getty Stock Photo)

Where did the term 'alpine divorce' come from?

The term is gaining greater use, particularly on TikTok where people have been posting videos saying their partner ditched them in the middle of nowhere.

However, it appears to have originated from a 19th century short story from the author Robert Barr titled An Alpine Divorce in which a man decides he's going to murder his wife by taking her to a mountain in Switzerland and pushing her off it.

Just before he's going to murder her she tells him she knew he would try and kill her, informs him she's told all her friends she suspected he would kill her on their holiday to Switzerland, tears off bits of her dress and throws them around the area to leave evidence before jumping off the mountain herself.

Her screams as she falls to her death bring two other hikers running, who discover her husband at the scene as he realises he's absolutely screwed and even though he didn't physically kill her with his own hands nobody will believe him that she jumped.

On the other hand he was absolutely planning to kill her in a premeditated murder so it serves him right, and she wouldn't have jumped if she hadn't worked out his plan to kill her.

The term comes from a short story about a man who was planning to murder his wife by pushing her off a mountain (Getty Stock Photo)

An 'alpine divorce' is abusive

The psychotherapist said an 'alpine divorce' could come at any point in a relationship and typically indicates that a partner lacks empathy or care.

She said: "They may have shown a lack of empathy in other areas, such as not being concerned about your needs, dismissing you, ridiculing you, telling you that you're not good enough, forcing you to attend to their needs only."

That sounds very much like an abusive relationship, and there would be few clearer signs of abuse than taking you somewhere and then just leaving you to fend for yourself there.

Sadly, she also said it was common for those subjected to this sort of behaviour to be blamed by the partner who abandoned them in that unfortunately prevalent behaviour of gaslighting.

She warned that the partner who did the abandoning would often find some reason to blame the other person.

"People with a lack of empathy are really into teaching people a lesson," she said.

"They're looking for a reason to blame you and they can have a hair trigger temper, so they will just leave and not even consider what your needs are or that they're abandoning you."

It's very dangerous to leave someone in the middle of nowhere, and a psychotherapist said it suggested they lacked empathy (Getty Stock Photo)

How to deal with an 'alpine divorce'

Enough people have been sharing their own experiences of this kind of behaviour that it's posing a clear danger to them, being abandoned puts someone in a situation they have to figure their way out of.

The basic safety tenet of always making sure you can contact someone is one of the main things to deal with the most immediate and practical challenges posed by being left alone in nature.

When going with someone unfamiliar out into the wild the safe option is to make it a short trip where there will be plenty of other people and to tell somebody else where you were going.

As for the emotional damage of being abandoned by a partner, Sarkis suggested talking to a therapist to deal with the trauma and to be aware that someone who would do something as callous as abandoning you 'may do it again'.

Basically, dump that creepy loser.