Every day, Claire Morton thinks back to that moment in November when she could have saved her marriage.

Her husband of 24 years, the father of her three children, had come home from work and announced he didn’t love her any more and wanted to leave.

She sat and calmly listened to his footsteps upstairs in the bedroom as he packed his bag. She didn’t think to follow him up. Not once did she ask him to reconsider. To talk it through. To try to make it work.

Fifty-three-year-old travel agent Claire Morton's husband left her after 24 years Though shocked and hurt, the mother of three from Colchester, Essex, admitted she was excited about being single and joined dating app Tinder

‘Bye then,’ she said, as he walked out of the door and out of her life

Though shocked and hurt, Claire, a 53-year-old travel agent from Colchester, Essex, admits part of her was excited at the thought of being single again.

While she loved her husband, like most couples in long marriages, she felt they had become a little staid and set in their ways. Their sex life was hardly the firework display of their 20s, and sometimes she’d look over at this snoring, paunchy, greying man on the other side of the bed and wonder: ‘Is this it?’

A few of her divorced and single friends had talked about meeting men on Tinder — a mobile phone dating app with 50 million users globally. It is a bit like internet shopping for partners.

Presented with someone’s profile on their screens, users are asked to swipe left for ‘no’ and right for ‘yes’ if they like the look of them.

While criticised by many for its commodification of sex and relation-ships, Tinder continues to grow exponentially. Earlier this month, it was reported that the four-times divorced actress Patsy Kensit, 49, had added her name to the dating pot.

Like many other middle-aged divorcees, Claire found Tinder to be a tawdry, loveless, moral abyss

To Claire, it sounded like a different world; a sweet shop filled with thrills and excitement, all available at her fingertips. Just the pick-me-up she needed.

Sadly, six months later, Claire would do anything to be back in the marital home, listening for the sound of her husband’s key in the door.

For she, like countless other middle-aged divorcees, has found the world of internet dating — of which Tinder leads the field — to be a tawdry, loveless, moral abyss.

In fact, she’d be the first to warn any married woman secretly thinking the grass might be greener on the other side to stay firmly where she is.

Claire says: ‘I’d hoped to meet some decent men in their 50s, someone with whom I could enjoy a conversation or a meal out.

‘But it was horrendous and I’ve found that it’s zapped my confidence and made me feel a lot more anxious about the future.

‘I’ve been shocked by the number of men who think it’s acceptable to send you pictures of their private parts.

‘One man started sending me lewd messages, asking me what I’d like sexually. When I refused to interact with him, he sent more messages until I had to report him to the app and delete my profile.

‘What I find particularly depressing is that these men think that’s what women today have been reduced to — that it’s a normal way to speak to a woman in 2017.

‘If this is the way forward in dating, the world is going to be left full of single, lonely hearts.’

Liars, cheats and weirdos: A divorcee's dating app diary Cath Halsall, 48, runs her own marketing business and lives in Peterborough, Cambs. She tried Tinder for six weeks and kept this diary of her experience. Finally I felt ready to dip my toe back into dating. Since my divorce nine years ago, my life has revolved around my 14-year-old daughter, Sophie, and my business. But with my 50s approaching, I’m at an age when I’d like someone to cuddle up to at the end of the day. I was aware of Tinder’s seedy reputation, but a couple of friends in their 40s swore by it, so I decided to give it a go. Here’s how I got on: Cath Halsall, 48, runs her own marketing business and lives in Peterborough, Cambs. She tried Tinder for six weeks and kept a diary of her experience Week one I made a profile by downloading the app to my phone and linking it to my Facebook account, then I chose some flattering pictures of myself. To deter time-wasters, I tried to be as specific about what I was looking for in a man as possible: someone with a good sense of humour who would share my love of Eighties music. As a more mature woman, I also made it plain I didn’t appreciate being called ‘babe’, ‘sweetie’, ‘princess’, ‘my lovely’, ‘cutie’, or ‘hun’ and that I was not in the market for one-night stands. My phone was flooded with hundreds of men who matched my criteria — aged 40 to 55 and all within a 60-mile range. I admit I was excited. All these men I could take my pick from! It felt like going shopping with no limit on my card. By the end of the first hour, I had swiped right — or approved — about 50 possibles who I liked the look of. A few hours later, I got my first match — one of the men had liked me back. Mike, a 49-year-old mechanic, cut straight to the chase. He pointed out that we were no more than a couple of minutes apart. ‘On my lunch break,’ he messaged. ‘Do you fancy meeting up for a bit of fun?’ I was horrified. I quickly ducked below the window and turned off my phone. Week two After my alarming start, I decided I’d have to play detective to stay safe. So when super-muscled Dave popped up, saying he was a member of an elite Army regiment on a secret mission to the Middle East, I decided to do some digging. I asked for his email address and used it to track down his IP address — the unique number that identifies the network on which an email is sent — and found that his message had come from Russia. When I asked why, Dave’s profile instantly disappeared. Clearly, I was going to have to keep my wits about me. Week three This was getting depressing. When I first dated 30 years ago, we’d shyly share a warm Bacardi and coke and talk about Duran Duran. Today, there’s no innocence, no flirting, no finesse. I began the week being ‘wooed’ by a ‘suitor’ who called himself Firm Hand. His profile picture showed a stool painted with the words: ‘The Naughty Spot.’ His ideal Tinder date, he revealed straightaway, was a ‘strict auntie’ to give him a ‘guiding hand’. Then there was Mark, who wanted to meet me with ‘the wife’ — pictured with her face obscured, but not much else. I felt sick. Was this really what dating had been reduced to? I suddenly felt very sorry for my daughter. Will she ever experience that thrill of eyes meeting across a crowded bar? I was two weeks and hundreds of swipes in, and I’d still not had a single, genuine date with an honest man. I felt like giving up. Week four As I kept swiping, it became clear that the more mature men of Tinder fall into a few distinct categories. There are the bachelors posing with cars or speed boats, the men wearing suits that varied in quality from Savile Row to Burton, but who all wanted to imply they were CEOs. Then there are the tattooed drinkers and smokers brigade, all pictured ‘down the pub’, and finally the sportsmen perched on high-spec bikes, spattered in mud on assault courses, or crossing marathon finishing lines. A man named Paul claimed to be an injured body builder, yet he seemed baffled when I decided to call his bluff by asking about the technical details of his diet plan. That conversation quickly fizzled out. Spending a lonely old age in front of the TV began to seem rather inviting. Week five Over my time on Tinder, I found that the more I swiped, the more fussy I became. Soon, I started narrowing down my choices. By a process of elimination, I realised my ideal man was a Paul Hollywood lookalike in a management position or running his own business. The arbitrary way in which I started to dismiss men shocked me — especially when I realised there were thousands of people out there doing the exact same thing to me. Is this what relationships have come to? Window shopping, reducing fellow humans to a number of physical attributes on which we reject or pursue them? It all feels so clinical and wrong. I tried to strike up a conversation with every man I matched with, but half never even responded. Others ‘ghosted’ me — not returning messages after we’d exchanged a few pleasantaries. After a while it didn’t even feel offensive or rude — it’s just the normal way to treat people on Tinder. Week six At last, a date. Jonathan described himself as a divorced ex-policeman in his 50s who now worked in security. Most attractive of all, he didn’t seem to be pretending to be something he wasn’t. So when he suggested meeting for a coffee, I thought why not. However, as I sat sipping my latte in a nice dress waiting for him to turn up, I did wonder what I’d done. I’d checked if the car park had CCTV in case he tried to abduct me. I’d also resolved to drive twice round town on the way home in case he followed me. He turned out to be a perfectly nice chap who’d had a similar experience to me on Tinder. He’d grown tired of the double entendres about truncheons and handcuffs he’d get when he said he’d been in the police force. But the spark wasn’t there and, as we said our goodbyes, I could see he felt the same way. So it’s back to the drawing board... or is it? To be honest, I don’t know if I have the energy. Advertisement

Marital therapist Andrew Marshall, author of It’s Not A Midlife Crisis, It’s An Opportunity, says he has been seeing more and more women like Claire, bored with their marriages and tempted by one ‘last hurrah’ in the seemingly exciting world of internet dating.

According the Office for National Statistics, while the divorce rate among the rest of the population has fallen, the number of ‘silver splitters’ — divorces among people in their 40s and 50s — has risen by three-quarters in the past 20 years. At the same time, the past five years have seen a boom in dating apps.

Yet the reality of starting again on the dating scene, 30-plus years after they left it, rarely lives up to the expectation, says Mr Marshall.

While there are many internet dating success stories — one in five relationships nowadays is said to start online — for the over-40s and 50s, it can be a tough, confusing and brutal world.

‘For any woman whose last experience of meeting partners was many years ago via friends, work or in a nightclub, she will find the dating landscape has changed considerably — and not in her favour,’ says Mr Marshall. ‘Because, though dating sites offer the prospect of meeting thousands of men, the power dynamic has shifted once you’re an older woman.

‘First, the pool of potential partners is much smaller. As a 40-plus woman, the choice is very limited. There may be men in their 20s and 30s who want to date you, but the chances of them wanting a relationship rather than their Mrs Robinson are, sadly, slim.’

Cath was aware of Tinder’s seedy reputation, but a couple of friends in their 40s swore by it, so she decided to give it a go

One depressing concern for women dating online today is that the internet has made porn far more acc-essible — and this has twisted the behaviour of men.

‘Women tell me the men they meet on the internet will send them explicit messages before they have even swapped phone numbers,’ says Mr Marshall.

Another criticism of the internet dating scene is that it offers too much choice and people live in a perpetual state of thinking that someone better is around the corner, which only leads to dissatisfaction.

‘With so many people to choose from, Tinder can set the bar so high that if you see a person who is not absolutely perfect or who can’t meet you tonight, you keep on swiping until there’s someone else who can,’ says divorce coach Sara Davison.

‘It makes it harder to commit because maybe you think that the next person will tick more boxes. Then everyone starts suffering FOMO — fear of missing out.

‘Even when a woman goes on a date with a man, it’s likely he’ll have other women lined up on Tinder so he can keep his options open.’

There are also the well-publicised sad stories of inexperienced newcomers struggling to navigate the shark-infested waters of internet dating and getting ripped off.

Instances of online dating scams have risen by 32 per cent in just three years, according to Action Fraud.

There is no suggestion, though, that this rising crime is limited to Tinder.

Instead of being the ego boost the newly divorced crave, many middle-aged women find it ends up crushing their confidence.

‘Physical attractiveness is put front and centre of relationship building,’ says Ryne Sherman, psychology professor at Florida Atlantic University, who studies changing sexual habits.

‘Historically, there were other things we might also find interesting about a person: their career, taste in music or art, values, friends and social reputation. With Tinder, all that information is stripped away.’

And it seems women are more likely to lose out in this arrangement.

‘Men are far more likely than women to desire physical attractiveness in a romantic partner,’ says Professor Sherman.

‘Women are more likely to desire attributes that signal status. But it doesn’t really help women much because status is not as easily conveyed — and much easier to fake — in a photograph.’

Sadly, Claire, knows it’s too late to turn back the clock and after her disappointing attempt at internet dating, she’s reconciled herself to being single.

‘I would give anything to go back to the day my husband said it was not working — I would never have let him just walk out of the door,’ she says. ‘It was the most stupid, childish thing I ever did.’

Some names have been changed.