What Ashley Madison tells us about relationships
Did you watch the Ashley Madison documentary on Netflix (released March 2024)? To recap, Ashley Madison is a “discreet” dating platform for people looking to cheat on their significant other. Currently they have 70M members, and their tagline is “life is short, have an affair”. In 2015 Ashley Madison was hacked and the private data of its members was publicly leaked, leading to maelstrom of news coverage, ridicule, lawsuits, divorces and even suicides. It turned out that Ashley Madison’s promises of highly secured data and privacy were a sham and also that many of the gorgeous women on their site (who were looking to cheat on their spouses with other members) were fake; bots who interacted with paying members to keep them hooked.
I’m not surprised that Ashley Madison exists. And while I don’t condone the encouragement of cheating, I think they were way ahead of their time and addressing a deep need: partnered people often feel sexually or intimately stagnant and stuck. The documentary showed a beautiful, happily married couple who seemed perfect, like they had it all – yet in a moment of feeling bogged down by life’s responsibilities the husband created an Ashley Madison account and started cheating on his wife. His amazing wife whom he loved, and continued, in parallel, to build a life with.
Who knows how things might have transpired if the leak hadn’t occurred but in their case he was exposed and it caused a rift in their marriage. The wife was devastated and couldn’t understand why he’d done it; she had tried so hard to be a perfect wife. They made amends and their relationship evolved to be stronger, more honest and more truly intimate. Many others weren’t so lucky. I ask myself, how many narrow, stressful escapes from being caught, divorces, or suicides could have been prevented if these otherswise functional couples had chosen the brave path of opening up? Exploring some way to meet their differing needs for connection or sex while remaining one another as supportive life partners? Building a pressure-release valve into their union.
Ashley Madison is spotlighting the hunger couples have for intimacy of all kinds. I have compassion for people who follow that urge to cheat; they’re choosing to maintain their animal nature, their drives, rather than deaden them. But I do think there’s a better way. It’s a little harder on the front end. Ready for some real self reflection? Uncomfortable and radically honest convos with your partner? But it’s a lot easier than divorce or suicide.
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