Let’s say your name has been found among the millions of names released in the data hack of the illicit affair-promoting website, Ashleymadison.com.
Now what?
Some might tell you to find a good divorce lawyer.
But an Ottawa man has another, admittedly controversial, course of action.
Matt (last name withheld to protect his privacy) runs Greyscale Solutions – a service designed to actually help adulterers not get caught.
It’s not that Matt is pro-infidelity. He wants to help his clients to end their cheating ways. But he doesn’t want them to end with pain and acrimony.
“I guide cheaters away from inevitable disaster,” he says. “And re-focus them down a path that is right for them and their families.”
Matt is trained in both government espionage and private investigation. He can use his skills to train a client to not get caught until they can end the affair, or if need be the marriage, as cleanly as possible.
“People make mistakes,” he says. “People go down the wrong path at times. People get in over their heads. And at some point you might get to the point where you feel you can't get yourself out of it. That's where I come in. I will help you get out of this situation that is not how you intended it to go.”
But the trick is to not get caught. How can that possibly help someone whose name has already been revealed in the Ashley Madison data dump?
Not everyone named actually used the website. One of Greyscale’s services is to create convincing backstories – lies – to help explain situations away. “It’s never too late. There’s never a situation that is too far gone that you can’t recover,” says Matt.
It is certainly a controversial “what-your-partner-doesn’t-know-won’t-hurt-them” approach to infidelity. But Matt says that, as a private investigator, he’s seen the other side of things. He’s gathered evidence on cheating spouses only to watch families torn apart in the aftermath. “I couldn’t hang up my hat at the end of the night and feel good about what I’ve done,” he says. “It didn’t make me feel like I was making a positive difference.”
“Infidelity, unfortunately, is a fact of life with or without this website,” says Tanya Davies of Davies Law Firm in Ottawa. She doesn’t know if the Ashley Madison breach will cause more divorce or not. Many couples will work it out and those that don’t might well have been heading for divorce anyway.
But the way they find out, she says, can have an impact on how they sue for divorce. “When they see infidelity they become very emotional,” says Davies. “There’s a lot of hurt. There’s a lot of anguish, a lot of pain.”
That often leads to acrimonious, drawn-out, and expensive cases. According to Canadian Lawyer Magazine, the average non-contested divorce in Canada costs $1,845 while a contested divorce averages $13,638.
Matt of Greyscale Solutions says he doesn’t want to make a business out of enabling cheaters for life. But he says helping someone end their double life doesn’t have to end in disaster.
Should cheaters come clean no matter what, or is full disclosure sometimes not worth the cost to all involved? Let us know what you think.
