Belle Burden’s best-selling memoir Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, which chronicles the sudden collapse of her 21-year marriage, has brought a once-obscure phenomenon into public conversation: The blindside divorce.

Sometimes referred to as “sudden divorce syndrome”, a blindside divorce describes the unexpected dissolution of a relationship. One partner appears to vanish emotionally overnight.

Stories abound of spouses leaving to “buy milk” and never returning, or calmly serving dinner before announcing they have already filed for divorce. The defining feature is not merely separation itself, but the absence of warning, discussion or any visible lead-up to the rupture.

Critics might argue that divorce is rarely mutual, or that blindsiding reflects individual attachment styles. Avoidantly attached individuals, for example, are thought to be more likely to withdraw rather than confront conflict directly. Yet, after years researching intimacy, relationships and digital culture, I have become convinced that blindside divorce is also a product of a wider social transformation ushered in by dating apps.

The behaviours that dominate app culture (ghosting, low accountability and transactional attitudes to intimacy) have increasingly migrated into relationships themselves.

Seven years ago, one participant in a focus group told me about a man she had met on a dating app. They shared effortless banter and quickly became inseparable. One Saturday they were making plans for that night when he abruptly stopped responding. At first she assumed he had become distracted. By nightfall, anxiety crept in. Had something happened to him? Was he hurt? Dead?........

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