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You’re halfway up a mountain with the man you love. The air is thin, the path is icy and suddenly he turns around and says he’s going on without you.

Welcome to the terrifying new relationship term doing the rounds online: the Alpine Divorce.

The phrase has gained traction following the tragic case of Austrian climber Thomas Plamberger, who was convicted of negligent manslaughter last month after leaving his girlfriend, Kerstin Gurtner, alone near the summit of the Grossglockner during a winter climb. She later died of hypothermia just 150 meters from the top.

Since then, the phrase ‘Alpine Divorce’ has exploded across Google Trends, with searches up more than 2,000 percent in the past month.

It refers to a chilling scenario where someone ends a relationship by abandoning their partner during a hike or climb, sometimes miles from help. 

On Reddit and outdoor forums, women have begun sharing eerily similar stories. Partners storming off mid-hike after an argument. Boyfriends racing ahead and refusing to wait. In some cases, women say they were deliberately left behind in remote areas as a form of punishment or control.

Of course, most of us aren’t dumped halfway up a glacier. But the reason this term is resonating with so many is because the feeling it taps into is an extreme version of something painfully familiar. 

Being abandoned.

Haven’t we all experienced a partner who stops showing up - emotionally and physically – at some point?

The man who disappears during difficult conversations. Or the boyfriend who slowly drifts further and further ahead while you’re left trying to keep up.

I once dated a man who would walk ahead of me when we argued. Not figuratively. Literally.

We’d be walking home from dinner and suddenly he’d be power-walking, knees to chest style, 30 meters ahead like he was training for the Olympic speed-walking team.

Looking back, he wasn’t just being rude - he was Alpine Divorcing me.

Some followers have shared even more dramatic examples of partners abandoning them mid-trip, mid-argument and sometimes miles from help. These moments might not take place at high altitude by they're still high risk situations - physically and emotionally.

One woman told me how a holiday hike turned frightening when her boyfriend lost patience with her pace.

She explained that they were travelling in Patagonia when he insisted on climbing a nearby mountain. She was exhausted after days of walking and asked if they could slow down, but he accused her of ‘making excuses.’

During the hike, he repeatedly stormed ahead during arguments about her fitness level until he eventually disappeared from sight entirely, leaving her alone on a deserted road with poor phone signal in a country where she didn’t speak the language.

Panicking, she wandered for nearly two hours before finally running into strangers who helped contact him.

Another young woman I spoke to said her boyfriend simply drove off during a disagreement.

The couple had been arguing while out in the city when he suddenly got in his car and left her standing outside a restaurant.

She didn’t know the area, had almost no battery on her phone and her purse was in his car.

She ended up calling her sister to rescue her because she had no idea how to get home safely.

These incidents didn’t involve icy mountain summits or life-and-death climbs. But the feeling the women describe is the same: being left behind, physically or emotionally, by someone who was supposed to have your back.

According to relationship psychologists behavior like this can signal deeper control dynamics, where one partner asserts power by leaving the other feeling vulnerable or dependent. And that can have serious consequences should the break up end up in court.

Mehnaz Zanil, an associate attorney at family law specialists, Rayden Solicitors, says: ‘What may be presented online as a dramatic break-up trend could, in the family court, be treated far more seriously if it evidences intimidation, recklessness or coercive and controlling behavior.’

Keep those receipts girls. In fact, whip out the phone and hit record next time he does it.

Zanil says if a partner deliberately abandons the other in a dangerous or remote setting, the courts may view it as evidence of poor judgment or intimidation. In cases involving children, judges can even order investigations into it before deciding on custody arrangements.

‘If a partner deliberately strands the other in a remote or unsafe location in order to frighten, punish or exert control, the court may consider that behavior within the wider definition of domestic abuse,’ Zanil says.

Just because a man isn’t being violent mean he isn’t abusive. Coercive control can be just as damaging.

So, before you start scrambling to keep up with that guy who's receding into the distance, ladies take note.

If someone is capable of abandoning you, whether it’s half way up a mountain or in the middle of a difficult conversation, they're probably not the person you want beside you for the rest of the climb anyway.

Because a good partner doesn’t race to the summit alone. They slow down, reach for your hand, and make sure you both get there safely and together.

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