GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Data displayed online shows that that in Grand Rapids there were almost 23,000 registered users. That's more than the number of people who voted in this month's mayoral election.
Recently hacked, AshleyMadison.com is the website where married people pay to cheat and not get caught. And fallout continues from the hack of the personal information of its more than 30 million users.
A website has used that data to create a map showing exactly where those users are, and it's pretty shocking.
As the days go by, more and more websites are popping up, making it easier to search through the names and locations of users of the adultery website. These cites reportedly show Michigan State University has the most school email accounts on the site than any other school in the country.
Grand Rapids relationship counselor Joe Martino said that the hack is helping to shine a light on the issue of cheating, which is something more common than people might think, citing recent studies that say about 73 percent of people have affairs.
"That's crazy, that's seven in 10. You always figure some people are lying, so it's probably higher," said Martino.
"There is a peer pressure in your more conservative towns," said Martino. "You know people are going to view issues of marriage as a collective differently here in West Michigan, say, than Cal Berkeley."
Martino said that more times than not, affairs have nothing to do with sex and are more so a grab for power and control.
Anyone who has found their spouse's name in the Ashley Madison user list should face the issue head on, he said. "The truth is always the best option from where I'm sitting. When you use the truth, you can just kind of deal with it and move forward."
Martino said that users who were actively having an affair at the time of the hack will be affected the most compared to someone who had just started or stopped months ago.
"There's got to be someone out there that will check and say, 'Oh man, my husband or my wife is having an affair,'" said Martino.
And then there's the possibility of blackmail. Based on his experience, Martino says it's fairly common for someone to be blackmailed by a scorned lover threatening to expose nude pictures or details of their relationship to their spouse.
"Somebody is having an affair, and it's with somebody at work and now they break it off and they still see each other every day, the person at work is now mad. So you know what they do? Oh I've got pictures of whatever."
It's also important to understand sex addiction is a real illness, Martino noted. Someone struggling with fidelity should get help and not just be labeled as a cheater. "I'm not in anyway excusing what they did, but it is something we need to bring into the conversation. How do we treat them? How do we help them?" said Martino.
The Canadian government, where Ashley Madison headquarters is located, said it is investigating two suicides possibly related to the hack.
There are also a couple of attorneys who have filed $578 million class action lawsuit against the company.
The company itself is offering a $500,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the people involved in the data breach.
