Marriage can be defined as a sacred union between two people who love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives with each other. Yet time and time again men and women become unhappy along the way. One major marital issue is having an affair on a spouse. 

Ashley Madison has made claims on their website for many years that they are the top site to help men and women anonymously seek relationships outside of their marriages. However, in August 2015 all profiles that were considered to be private and anonymous were revealed and made public in what is known as the Ashley Madison hack. The breach of data from the Ashley Madison website has revealed thousands of names, emails and even the sexual fantasies of thirty-seven million users. Hackers still have the abilities to expose the millions of more users that have subscribed to the website.

Considering that Ashley Madison has made a name for itself by helping married people seek partners outside of their relationship, it is surprising that the site did not take better precautions to protect their users from breaches like this. Thousands of men and women have been caught in a lie and it has caused permanent damage to their marriages. Affairs strongly damage family ties, finances and even the well-being of others yet it happens repeatedly and is one of the more prominent reasons why marriages fail.

Does paying a fee for a marriage license and having a bureaucratic ceremony properly encapsulate the sanctity of marriage? Marriage used to be this sacred event in people’s lives that required years of contemplating if a person was truly meant for them. But with websites like Ashley Madison the idea of loyalty and respect in a marriage is utterly destroyed. Marriage is supposed to be this concrete idea that you’re with someone for the rest of your life and that this person has the same moral standings and goals for the future as you do. Yet, there are times when people change their minds and their marriages change as well.

Popular Catholic belief is that marriage comes as a gift from the hands of God, yet people who marry in the Catholic Church still have failed marriages because of the prominent issue of infidelity. The Catholic Church also defines love as God’s willingness to allow people to bring life into the world but children who come from failed marriages struggle throughout their lives.

Ashley Madison and its breach have made it known to many how prevalent affairs and infidelity are in marriages. Men and women seek other partners so that they can create their own terms for marriage that is convenient for them but this is simply a reflection of how this dating website has ruined the sanctity of marriage.

At what point do people lose interest in their spouses and have to seek out another person to fulfill their needs and wants? When it comes to keeping marriages together and creating a lifelong union people should take the necessary steps and create the time to fix marriages and help their relationships recover from infidelity.

Men and women are able to create a new identity for themselves online. The idea of escaping a marriage is now easier than ever. There are so many social media outlets that allow people to change who they are, their relationship status and even their name. The reckless lifestyles that people live on the internet and the major damages that affairs cause to marriages will always be prevalent because of websites like Ashley Madison.