Her date of 4 months 'vanished' at 6 PM every night to ‘switch off.' Months later, his wife asked a Facebook group about his constant ‘work trips’
She thought he was looking after his three-year-old child in the evenings, but it couldn't be further from the truth
The internet is packed with horror stories about modern online dating. However, one woman's recent experience might just top the list. She had been dating a man she met on Hinge for four months, and things felt genuinely promising. However, there was just one bizarre catch: every single evening at 6:00 PM sharp, he vanished completely. When she asked about it, he claimed that he just liked to "switch off" his phone to decompress after work. Initially, the woman believed the man until she stumbled upon a post on Facebook from his wife. Her entire story was then shared online by Ebony Day and Lucie on their podcast It's a Girl Thing (@girlthingpod) on March 26, 2026, garnering over 5,300 likes.
A promising Hinge connection
Although the relationship was barely four months old, the connection led the woman to start expecting certain things from her partner. Dates were noticeably infrequent, but the man's reason seemed genuine. "He had a 3-year-old, and it meant dates were limited, which I fully respected," she acknowledged. The woman was willing to give him all the grace in the world.
The sharp 6:00 PM act
Beneath the promising surface, however, an eerie behavioral pattern began to surface. Every single night at 6:00 PM, the man would turn off his phone and leave the woman stranded without so much as a goodbye. "I thought maybe I was being needy," she admitted, questioning if her longing for evening conversation made her seem so overbearing. Nonetheless, she decided to gently confront her partner regarding this. He brushed off her concerns with a cover story, insisting that he just needed private time to read, unwind, and "switch off" after work.
A devastating Facebook reveal
The carefully crafted digital detox unraveled abruptly during a mindless scroll through social media months later. Right there on her Facebook feed was his familiar face, shared inside a group by an anxious stranger asking if anyone had seen her husband. The woman shared how her husband had been going on "constant work trips" and was worried about his "distant behavior." "And there he is; my 'switches off at 6 PM' king," the woman noted bitterly as she connected the dots. His phone was never off for wellness; he was simply living a double life.
The discovery didn't end just there. Scrolling further into the comment section, the woman found more shocking details about this man. As it turned out, she wasn't the only woman he was dating. She discovered two other women confirming they had matched with him on Hinge over the past year or so and were seeing him as well. But the biggest blow came when she recalled her conversation with the man. "You're not married, are you?" she remembered asking him, to which he merely chuckled and told her that "not all men were awful."
Prevalence of dating apps amongst the married
Surprisingly, as bizarre as this story was, the chances of a similar situation arising with someone else might be higher than expected. According to an Institute for Family Studies survey, a striking 11% of married adults under 40 report using dating websites. Men are more likely to use such websites and apps, with 18% confirming the same compared to just 6% of women in the same age group. What's worth noting is that the chances of married people using dating websites increase with their family income. While only 10% of adults with an income of under $40,000 report using these websites, it climbs up to 16% for families earning more than $100,000.
This is beyond comprehension
As for the people, they couldn't reel in the audacity of this man. @liziloe suggested, "Always trust your gut instincts and never let a red flag go." At the same time, @kealaann30 revealed, "The same happened to me… I found out my ex had a wife, and when I went to surprise him at his home instead of mine. Lo and behold, the wife was there, and to my shock, knew who I was."
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