In general, it's certainly possible that some marriages have fallen apart over a revealing photograph. However, there's no truth to the viral stories on the same subject that appeared in online advertisements and YouTube videos.
Since at least 2021, an online advertisement has claimed: "Woman Files For Divorce After Seeing This Photo - Can You See Why?" The ad showed a red circle that appeared to be pointing something out to readers.
However, this was not a real story. We clicked on the ad. It led to a 77-page slideshow article on the website Sports Spotter. On the final page of the story, we found this disclaimer: "This is a made-up story for entertainment purposes. All pictures shown are for illustration purposes only."
In the fictional story, a wife finds a picture that she believes shows her husband posing with another woman and two children. This leads her to think he is secretly living a second life with another family. She then believes she needs to file for divorce. In the end, the husband reveals that the photograph shows his twin brother, a person he never told her about. He provides proof to her. She believes him and they remain together.
The red circle on the picture in the ad supposedly indicated that the twin brother was missing a finger. This was part of the way that the husband proved it wasn't him, but rather his twin brother. We found the same photograph on a stock photography website named iStockPhoto.com. Its name showed up as "Happy Family Portrait."
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/happy-family-portrait-gm118266284-10128670
YouTube videos have also told variations of the same fictional tale. One video title read: "Family takes photo, wife files for divorce after seeing this detail." Another said: "Woman Files For Divorce After Looking Closer At This Photo..Shocking!!" We saw a video with a shorter title: "Wife Looks Closer At Photo, Files For Divorce." One even added a military twist: "Marine Serving Our Country Filed For Divorce As Soon As He Saw This Photo His Wife Sent."
All of the videos used generic stock video, just as the 77-page article showed stock photography. Some of the YouTube videos even appeared to display a family picture that may have been improperly obtained from a photographer's website. We contacted the photographer and will update this story if we receive a response.
In sum, the viral stories of "woman files for divorce after seeing this photo" were not true. While it's certainly possible that some revealing pictures have ended a number of real marriages in the past, there was no truth to the lengthy article or YouTube videos.
For further reading, we previously reported on another slideshow article that resulted from an ad. It read: "Woman Leaves House to Neighbour, His Mouth Falls Open When He Sees What’s Inside." In the end, it also contained a disclaimer on the last page that said it was purely for "entertainment purposes."