MJ calls what happened to her in Zion national park “small ‘T’ trauma”. She knows women have experienced worse from their partners. But she still feels the anger of being left behind on a hike by her now ex. “It brings up stuff in my body that maybe I have not cleared out yet,” she said.
Five years ago, MJ and a new partner – he was not exactly her boyfriend, and the pair were not exclusive – traveled from Los Angeles to Utah for an adventure getaway. MJ, who is 38 and works in PR, was looking forward to exploring Zion’s striking scenery; its vast sandstone canyon and pristine wading trails were on the list. But on the morning of their big hike, MJ was not feeling well. She could not shake the feeling that something was “off”; indeed, MJ would learn on this trip that her partner was seeing other women.
As they made their way up Angel’s Landing, MJ’s partner started walking faster than her. “I could tell it was getting on his nerves that I was slow,” she said. “I was like, ‘Fuck it, just go ahead of me.’” He did without hesitation.
When she caught up at the top of the mountain, they took a picture together. Then her partner hiked down the mountain with a woman he had met on the way up, leaving MJ to finish by herself. They broke up shortly after that trip. (MJ asked to be referred to by her initials for the sake of speaking openly about a past relationship.)
Last month, MJ opened TikTok and heard the phrase “alpine divorce”, a label she now attaches to her experience in Zion.
MJ and a new partner – he was not exactly her boyfriend, and the pair were not exclusive…[MJ] could not shake the feeling that something was “off”; indeed, MJ would learn on this trip that her partner was seeing other women.
This is like saying you agreed to go dutch on a date, and then feeling that something was “off” because you couldn’t shake the feeling he was intending to split the bill.
No shit?
Some of these comments are absolutely disgusting, many of you guys desperately need to talk to a therapist. If you read a story like this and feel the need to defend your gender identity, you have some deep-seated insecurity which you should take seriously before it starts harming your relationships with others. I am saying this as a man who had deep-seated insecurity which took a heavy toll on my relationships before seeking years of therapy. It’s not as expensive as it sounds, I promise, and it could totally change your life for the better.
Some people, not anyways men, have been taught, rather mercilessly, that they have to be self sufficient. These people get aggravated, even angry when someone else fails to live up to the standard that they (unfairly) were forced to. There can be an instinctive feeling that it is somehow an injustice to them.
That doesn’t excuse abandoning someone in the wilderness. Often these people struggle to learn to be a kind helper.
Also, none of this is meant to excuse the behavior. It is possible to understand “why” without condoning it. When confronting this it is important to be firm that it is unacceptable, as well as understanding that it may be a struggle to relearn.
Articles like this are 99% trash
Co-opting alpine divorce, which regularly involves a murder attempt, feels weird? Just call it the sierra split.
I do wonder how much of this is a cheapening of the weekend getaway, where you’d go to a B&B upstate, find out your potential partner snores, drinks to much, is rude to service workers, or views a toothbrush as optional. You’d sigh and split. It’s just a bad weekend.
But with this, camping and hiking is a complication. You’re drinking warm filtered water from a Nalgene, eating granola because someone forgot to bring a lighter. Also, it’s raining and all your socks are wet. Did you bring anything to wash dishes? Ah, there are no dishes. You smell like smoke and are covered in sand.
Granted, you can do camping/hiking well, but I’d bet some of these cases are from people doing it poorly, trying to save a buck by avoiding more expensive weekend getaways.
Balanced take. This kind of thing is very veryserious. But also a dilution of the term Alpine Divorce, which people have died from.
I would never leave my girlfriend stranded on a hike. I need her for if there is a bear.
I know this isn’t really the same, but the article struck a chord with me and the experiences I have with my fiance. She convinced me to buy and play Arc Raiders. (It’s an extraction shooter.) This isn’t the type of game I normally play. I am not good. She made a run for an extraction point, and didn’t wait for me to be in the elevator before pressing the button to extract, leaving me stranded with the enemy everywhere. (She’s run way ahead of me in game before and I’ve taken issue with it and explained I feel abandoned when she runs way ahead without me.) The last time we played, I happened to make it to the elevator before her, and I made a point to say, “are you in the elevator,” before pressing the god damned button.
Obviously, I wasn’t in real danger, but those experiences have made me wary of depending on her.
“We need to talk” has now been replaced by “We need to go for a hike.”
I imagine a good way to make your significant other sweat in that region is to leave your hiking boots by the door.
See, when my wife starts to walk too slow I usually just grumble a bunch, then take everything she had with her, grab her hand, then tow her along.
That way she gets some help going faster, I know when I’m going too fast and can slow down, so when we finally get to the mountain top it’s easier to throw her off instead of having to chase her while she runs away screaming for help…
Women need to stop putting their faith in shitty men.
God forbid shitty men are told to be less shitty.
shitty men are more attractive than not shitty men, because shitty men are willing to do whatever it takes to get the girl, and then dump her on a mountain top.
shitty men are also really good at hiding how shitty they are, until they stop hiding it… and what a more perfect place to stop hiding it, than in the middle of no where with few witnesses.
Women shouldn’t bring up annoying nagging shit on hikes… because of the implication.
I’m just gonna say it, if you want to break up with your girlfriend don’t be a dick about it.
“Don’t go on a hike with someone you don’t trust.” All you little boys in here victim blaming need to be checked.
Got back into the dating world recently and was pretty surprised to learn that respectfully communicating your feelings about things afterwards is apparently rare. People need to grow up.
Ever since social media took over, dating and relationship rates have plummeted.
The amount and stuntedness of emotionally stunted immature men is only going up with social media…everything
the pair were not exclusive
…
MJ would learn on this trip that her partner was seeing other women
…isn’t that was “not exclusive” means?
Yeah, this is just zoomers not realizing what they’ve signed up for.
Casual partners may still prefer to know if their partner is sleeping with others for a variety of reasons. The first one that comes to mind is health.
Sure. My point is, though, isn’t that already implied by them not being exclusive?
They could be not exclusive but still agree to let the other know when they introduce a new sex partner.
Y’all never heard of safe sex?
Soooo, this guy was a dick, but aren’t you just defining “exclusive until we say we are not”?
Maybe I’m getting old and have lost the lingo (very possible) but I feel like we’re redefining exclusive here.
How would they be exclusive if additional sex partners are allowed? It’s not an asking for permission scenario, it’s just keeping your partners informed of who is involved.
I’ve mostly done so for health reasons.
I still think we are saying the same thing.
“Let’s not put labels on anything, let’s just choose to not have any other partners while we are sleeping together. If one us changes our mind about that, they should be up front with the other person about it.”
“Let’s be exclusive. If one us changes our mind about that, they should be up front with the other person about it.”
Am I missing something? Is “exclusive” used for a different definition now?
They could already have existing partners and wouldn’t be exclusive, but have an agreement to inform if there are new partners being added.
Also being exclusive is a more serious type of relationship than just friends with benefits imo.
The chance that they agreed on that and she wouldn’t mention it is slim, though
I’m shocked by this comment section… Guys defending some POS for leaving their non-committed partner on their own?
I mean, she said go on without me.
It’s an out and back. They waited for them up at the top.
To me the only shitty part is dumping them for another partner on the way down, goddamn that’s pretty shitty. We’re only hearing half the story though. Maybe she was being a jerk too and he didn’t want to put up with it.
Removed by mod
You don’t expect your BF to hook up with someone new mid-mountain.
Actually it says he wasn’t exactly her boyfriend either
Ok so it’s ok to abandon your fuck buddy. TIL
Nobody but you said that that part is OK.
You’re in a thread wondering about thee thread’s confusing description of their relationship status, not about the “leaving her behind” part.
Nobody but you missed the sarcasm. Or the moral behind it.
I was talking about the hooking up mid mountain part, which is what your comment I replied to was primarily about. And the OPs too.
You can just admit you missed that part instead of getting defensive.
I missed nothing. That is not important to the story. When you go into the wilderness with someone, you have formed an inherent defense pact and have a duty of care to each other. Hooking up mid mountain and leaving the other person, regardless of their relationship, is immoral. If harm comes to them, then it was likely illegal.
Your comment wasn’t talking about the “abandoning mid mountain” part. It was talking about the relationship status part. That’s the part I corrected. We weren’t, in this comment chain, talking about the overall story - it was about your comment on their relationship. Stop trying to build a strawman.
Geez, Americans really can’t admit they made even a minor mistake.
Adding you to my block list. Keep your petulant pedantry to yourself.
“I thought he was only seeing other men!”
Uhhhh
“seeing other women” means “not exclusive”
but “not exclusive” does not always mean “seeing other women”
He could be, just as one example of many, very unsuccessful at trying to see other women despite having an existing “nonexclusivity” agreement with her.
yes, but people are emotional and they don’t abide by their own terms
every casual relationship i ever had was never actually casual. it was just full on monogamy with a ‘get out of jail if someone better comes along’ card built in.
Valid, but far from universal. Poly people do exist.
poly people have rules.
Like telling their partners when they have a new sex partner.
A recent case study illustrates this point: last month, an amateur Austrian mountaineer was found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter for leaving his exhausted girlfriend behind on his country’s highest peak while he went in search of help. The man, a Salzburg chef identified only as Thomas P, said he was “endlessly sorry” for her death, and his lawyer called it a “tragic accident”. But Thomas P could not explain why he failed to wrap his freezing girlfriend in her emergency blanket before heading down the mountain without her. Earlier in their trek he had also told a police officer over the phone that they did not need any help, even though a rescue helicopter was made available to them.
I remember hearing about this one.
He had done it before with another woman, but she didn’t die. In the recent case, the dead woman’s family supported him. Even though he took their survival supplies. Very odd situation.
Her mom’s issue is the media and courts treated her daughter like a lost sheep led up a mountain.
She was an experienced climber and they planned their trips together.
He didn’t take the emergency supplies, he just didn’t swaddle her like a baby in her own.
The helicopter call stuff was kind of shady tho, and rightfully why he was found guilty.
But it’s not like the mom said he was innocent, she said it was likely an accident, because procedure in climbs like that is to leave someone behind, and she knew that because her daughter had been doing this long before the boyfriend.
But her comments got misrepresented for the headlines.
It all makes logical sense, it’s just the people telling us about it care more about drama and clicks than informing people.
If you understand it, it becomes an incredibly boring story that doesn’t stand out. Which is why TikTok went the complete opposite direction, and mainstream media is reporting on their nonsense for the clicks.
Quick edit:
Specifically for the emergency blanket part, the last stages of hypothermia makes you feel insanely hot.
The early stages cut off circulation to limbs to keep the torso warm, that’s why frostbite effects the extremities, it’s a trade off. When you’re going to die from it, you’re body can’t squeeze you’re arties off and all that “warm” blood floods to your limbs, causing them to quickly rise in temp while the vital parts get cold.
So she likely was bundled up just fine when he left her.
That’s all normal stuff climbers know, but the media/courts seemed to be willfully ignorant of.
All the articles I’ve read say he never applied the emergency blanket, it was still packed away. Nor did he make her safe by building any kind of shelter or securing her against wind.
And then he also did not call for help until three hours after they decided they needed help, and rejected the helicopter rescue. None of those are normal things. Those are the actions of someone abandoning someone to die.
None of those are normal things.
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Which is why he was found guilty of manslaughter
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And those bad decisions may likely be due to stress/incompetence. Something that happens, but again that’s what makes it manslaughter.
Those are the actions of someone abandoning someone to die.
If you’re ignorant of the realities of alpine mountaineering I could understand why you believe that.
The dead woman’s mom wasn’t ignorant of it tho, that’s why she keeps saying it wasn’t murder.
How experienced are you with cold weather mountain climbing?
I grew up doing it.
Well, then you don’t have an excuse
Neither do you.
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A new kind of serial killer 😂
