Why a Gay Hockey Romance Is Making Straight Women Leave Their Husbands

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It was Christmas Day when Annie decided she was going to leave her husband. There had been no blowout fight, no infidelity, not even a borderline offensively thoughtless Christmas gift. But Annie had seen something she couldn't unsee. "Episode Six: The Cottage. That was the turning point," says Annie, a 38-year-old teacher. "I remember just sitting there thinking, This is so far from my reality ."

Nine months after it aired in the U.S., where it averaged over 10.6 million viewers per episode, the influence of Heated Rivalry has only grown, so much so that it has begun to infiltrate a new and unexpected domain: divorce court. Over the last several months, dozens of women have taken to fan forums and social media to talk about how Jacob Tierney's gay hockey romance inspired them to leave their husbands or long-term partners. Tierney has said he wrote the scripts (adapted from Rachel Reid's book series ) with yearning at the core of the show. But what it's made many viewers yearn for is deeper than the physical appeal of wildly attractive professional athletes in their twenties or the rush of young love. For some women, watching Shane and Ilya fall in love has forced them to confront the lack of equity, communication, and emotional depth in their own partnerships.

After finishing the season finale, Annie tells me she longed for the comfort she saw on-screen—the kind of easy familiarity the characters had with each other. She envied the way Shane and Ilya showed vulnerability with one another; that they trusted one another enough to be vulnerable. When she thought back to the early days of her relationship, she realized that it wasn't that her partnership had changed over the years—a foundation built on trust had never been there in the first place. "Even at the beginning of our relationship it wasn't ever this comfortable and safe. When I was young, I believed in love like [Shane and Ilya's], and then somewhere along the way life got so hard that I settled for far less. And I just didn't want to go home to a partner who didn't even care about me anymore."

Louise, a 40-year-old mother from the U.K., had been with her fiancé for a decade before Heated Rivalry entered her life. Once she watched the show, she couldn't help but compare her own romantic life to what she saw on the screen. "It made me start looking at my own relationship and how I had become a mother and maid to a man I had no passion toward and who had no passion toward me," she says. "I wanted someone to struggle to keep their hands off me, to be obsessed with me the way Shane and Ilya are obsessed with each other."

While she says that the physical aspect of her relationship had never been similar to the fiery chemistry of the show, she had accepted it for what it was. But after watching Heated Rivalry , her unearthed desire and dissatisfaction with her sex life were so intense that she sought out medical advice. "I was so confused by my feelings after nearly 10 years in this relationship that I went to my doctor to discuss perimenopause," Louise says. "I was certain that it must be a hormone problem because what kind of crazy person ends a 10-year relationship because of a TV show?" Louise went on hormone replacement therapy, thinking once it took effect, her feelings would settle. Weeks later, her hormone panel came back normal, but her feelings toward her partner hadn't changed.

Louise describes "craving reheats" (a phrase fans use to describe rewatching the show) much like an addict who needs their next fix. She needed "more and more in a desperate attempt to feel that desire and passion again even vicariously through someone else," she explains. Once she realized her relationship was never going to live up to the ideal she was watching on-screen, she ended it.

A physiological reaction to the show isn't uncommon among fans. Suzie, a retired Air Force reservist in Kansas, had a similar experience after watching. "I watched for 60 days straight. All six episodes," she tells me. "It's a drug—flat out—and it has screwed up my mind."

Suzie had been married to her husband for nearly 25 years when Heated Rivalry caught her attention. She was already having discussions with her therapist about potentially separating from her husband, but had been leaning towards staying. But a few weeks into her 60-day binge, the show pushed her in the opposite direction. "The show is filled with romantic and platonic relationships where the people really enjoy each other's company and complement and support their special people in the way they need to be supported," Suzie says. "It's a learning process, of course, but 25 years was long enough to know I couldn't get the adjustments I was longing for." She describes her husband as a good man and a good father, but emotionally unavailable in comparison to the characters on the show. "He just can't access his feelings. He just can't."

This wasn't Suzie's first experience with a borderline obsessive interest impacting her relationship. A few years into her marriage, she says she "got what I would call like the five-year itch. And what did it to me was Brokeback Mountain ." She tells me she saw the movie in theaters 12 times and even traveled across the country for a Q&A with the cast. "Part of this behavior does jive with how I do things," she says. "But I've never done it with a television show. I was very confused."

While perhaps the most recent, Heated Rivalry is far from the first piece of media to influence women to leave their partners. "People will often come to me and say 'I finished such and such book and I can't live with my husband anymore,'" says Dr. Noëlle Santorelli , a licensed clinical psychologist and adjunct faculty member at Emory School of Medicine's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science. "Now, do they actually leave? Usually no. But it is a catalyst to help them reevaluate what is going well and not well in their relationships."

Annie tried watching the show with her husband in hopes of starting a conversation, but he was not interested. It made her realize there was a larger trend in their dynamic. "When the first two episodes came out, I told him about the series and he was dismissive about something that made me happy," Annie says. "I realized then that every time I was happy, he found a way to bring me down."

Whether their husbands engage with the show or not, it has inspired many women to demand more emotional availability from their partners. Danielle, a 35-year-old wife and mother from the Midwest, decided to leave her husband of 13 years after the show made her realize that there was no emotional support in her marriage. "I suffer from anxiety attacks, and my partner would tell me to get over it, that I was fine, that I was being dramatic, or he would just walk away and leave," she says. "Panic attacks can be truly scary. But as I watched the show, each episode made me feel things I have never felt. It gave me hope. It made me want to find love, to find someone who won't make me feel bad for my feelings. Watching Heated Rivalry made me realize just how terribly alone and invisible I felt."

Many women I spoke with said it would be better to be lonely as a single person than to feel lonely in a relationship. But some of them have found an unexpected source of support online from other women making similar life changes because of the show. "I did find a great community on Threads where I saw others had the same wake-up call as me," Danielle says. "It made me so happy, but I also cried seeing I wasn't alone and how this show impacted so many people [to make] changes in their lives."

Despite the upheaval in her personal life, Danielle says she is grateful to Heated Rivalry . "This show will forever be special to me," she says. "I wake up ready to start my day knowing my future is so close and I'm ready to truly embrace it."

*Last names omitted throughout to protect privacy.