The impact of the recent hacking of Ashley Madison, website designed to facilitate marital infidelity, has only just begun to emerge. The personal information from the profiles of the site’s 37 million users – which includes their name, address, emails, financial information, message history and details about their personal sexual preferences – was hacked and then posted publicly on the Internet by the hackers.

The personal and financial information of U.S. government employees, federal, provincial and municipal workers across Canada and even members of the clergy were exposed leading to reports of extortion and two unconfirmed reports of suicide by Canadian police related to the hacking incident.

One of the biggest problems with the victims of the Ashley Madison hack is that of the 37 million who had profiles on the site, which promised to keep their profile information confidential, not every single subscriber actually went through with meeting another person and engaging in an affair. However, the fact that they signed up for a website whose business model is to help married people cheat is a difficult action to defend when your spouse discovers what you have done.

And when those millions of wives and husbands find out that their spouse had a profile on Ashley Madison, that is where the real impact will be felt. There will probably not necessarily be a rash of divorces, but there will be some divorces and a lot of emotional fallout from this breach. In a story on Forbes.com, M. Gary Neuman, a marriage therapist, said “When there is infidelity, there is tremendous upheaval and pain, so much so it is nearly impossible for either parent to keep it together to shield the children from the screaming or knowledge that one parent was unfaithful.” Neuman went on to say that about half of the couples who deal with cheating divorce right away, and that the research suggests about 50% of married men are unfaithful, compared to about 39% of married women who are unfailthful.

People deal with the knowledge of infidelity in different ways. As Mr. Neuman mentioned, only half will head straight for divorce. The other half of the people who have discovered infidelity in their relationship decide to stay and work on their relationship. For those that ultimately end up divorcing, it can mean a more angry and vindictive divorce that ends up costing the couple a lot more money due to fighting and disagreements that can result from the knowledge that the other partner was either cheating, or taking steps that would lead to their cheating.

If you are thinking about getting a divorce, you are invited to speak with our Nashville divorce attorneys to discuss your case. You are welcome to contact the legal team at Miller Upshaw Family Law, PLLC to learn more about our divorce legal services.