Nisha Susan: How alpine divorce is the new type of violence against women

Every now and then you have to ask if there can possibly be a new variety after the 99 varieties of dosa. Can there be a No.100 after the Schezwan avocado paneer hummus dosa? Will humanity have to finally admit it has hit a wall or will creativity prevail? Similarly, I have been asking myself can I be surprised by a new type of violence against women? I have been an occasional subject, frequent documenter and constant point-and-gasper of the confusingly light-hearted acronym “VAW” since I was six. Could anything surprise me now? I am here to admit that even in 2026, age and custom have not staled the infinite variety of VAW. And the new genre of violence against women that I have just encountered this month comes with a minty-fresh name: Alpine divorce.

The name, as will become clear, is significant in organising a variety of seemingly unconnected experiences. In February, amateur mountaineer Thomas P was found guilty of causing death by gross negligence (which carries a maximum sentence of three years) for leaving his girlfriend Kerstin G on Großglockner, Austria’s highest peak, in conditions that led to her death. She had been too exhausted to make the descent. It was midnight. He climbed down purportedly to get help but without using any of the equipment they had that could have kept her sheltered. The judge observed while delivering his decision that he felt Thomas, more experienced than Kerstin by miles, should have been able to see the oncoming disaster. Just 2 hours earlier Thomas had turned away a rescue team in a helicopter that had come looking for them, saying on a cellphone call that they were fine. In the judge’s summation, it definitely sounded like a series of bad decisions that Thomas will regret his whole life. Or won’t he? You can’t help wonder about his learning curve because one of the witnesses at the trial had jaw-dropping testimony. A former girlfriend testified that in 2023, just two years previously, she had climbed the very same Großglockner with Thomas. When her head torch ran out of battery, she said, Thomas left her on the slopes. At night. I still haven’t understood what the reasonable, could-happen-to-anyone decision tree on that one was.

Did Thomas’ former girlfriend know back then that there is an actual phrase for being abandoned in dangerous, outdoor conditions by your man? Social media knows now but the term “alpine divorce” dates back to An Alpine Divorce, Robert Barr’s 1893 short story about a man who schemes to kill his wife in the Alps. The phrase has circulated in hiking and outdoorsy circles for decades, sounding innocent and covering a spectrum of dangerous actions—ranging from the full Khoon Bhari Maang where someone hopes to make a murder look like an unfortunate accident to impulsive violence where no one is in earshot to the sub-variety which most intrigued me.

The alpine divorce debate is a fascinating sequel to the unquenchable 2024 social media debate that asked if women would prefer to come across a strange man in the woods or a bear. If you go on any social media of your choice you can see first-hand accounts of this last variety from hundreds of women who newly have a name for a harrowing experience that they had assumed had only happened to them. Your lover breaks up with you but somewhere where there is no network and you don’t know how to get back to civilisation and safety. You started as a pair of nature lovers but your boyfriend leaves, hoping that nature will do the job of killing you.

The location can range from mountain to desert to forest. The weather too can vary. What is the common factor? On the basis of a small argument or even silent disagreement about something, the man leaves the woman in a dangerous situation. To be clear, it is not the man removing himself from the location which increases the risks. The danger comes from the man taking with him the torch/the water bottle/the tent/the compass/the map as he leaves in a supposed huff. I say supposed because it is so fascinating in the many accounts to note how tiny the disagreement can be that justifies leaving your girlfriend/wife in a life-threatening situation. The TikTok video (handle: EverAfterlya) that triggered this huge discussion online had the plain but heart-breaking caption: “POV: you go on a hike with him in the mountains but he leaves you alone by yourself and you realize he never liked you to begin with.”

As is the case after a big spike in discussion about violence against women, the debate has given rise to dozens of how-to resources to protect yourself from alpine divorce. You could read them or I could paraphrase the brilliant writer Roxane Gay joking on Threads to this phenomenon: you are safe if you don’t go outdoors and don’t trust any men. Yet, that last subgenre of the impulsive breakup in the jungle is so familiar even to women who have never spent a third of their salary in Decathlon.

Even as a dedicated fan of the indoors, you only have to have a small fight with your boyfriend before he says “chalo bhaiya” and races away in the last auto at the stand so that you learn your lesson about being so feminist at 3am. As one friend who told me, “It is not just that I was alone after midnight in some dark part of the city, it was just that everyone on the street had got the signal—no one is coming looking for this woman.” It reminds me of one of my favourite memes—a man says women need men to protect them. A goose chases him hissing: protect them from who, f**ker, protect them from who?

Nisha Susan is the author of The Women Who Forgot to Invent Facebook and Other Stories.