My lover's wife posted my naked pictures online

For this topic, as most of your email inquiries are similar, I chose only the one letter that’s most representative of all your questions, then I took the liberty of addressing the matter here instead of replying to you individually by email. I hope this faster route of answering your related questions helps you just as effectively.


Dear Atty. Reeza,

I was a mistress. I dated a married man for five years. In that time, we became very close and madly in love. We  made plans to be together. He told me he didn’t love his wife anymore and he looked forward to making me his bride. I believed because I saw proof of their physical estrangement in social media, hardly finding any picture of them close together. Even when I’d see them at the mall, they never acted like spouses in love. They always walked apart, choosing to interact with their children than with each other.

A few months ago, I asked him when he intended to leave his wife so we could finally be together as he promised. When he did not respond, I nagged him, and when he still refused to answer, I gave him a deadline, until he yelled at me to shut up. And that was when I snapped. Maybe I was hormonal, or maybe I was just getting tired of waiting for him. My thoughts grew dark and I stood up and rushed at him with my fists, and as I hit him I screamed that he wasted five years of my life, that I could have been dating a better man, an eligible bachelor, if he had not promised me he would make me his wife.

That was my chance to walk away from him, and if I did, maybe I wouldn’t be having these legal problems now. But when he cried and kneeled before me, and for half an hour begged me for forgiveness while on his knees, promising me that he will leave his wife, that he was just waiting for the right time to do so, I crumbled right back into his arms. What could I do, I was blinded by my love for him.

That is, until his wife found out about us a few weeks later and everything went to hell. It appears he confessed our relationship to her and surrendered to her his phone where all our sexy messages, sex videos, and my naked pictures are stored. He also appears to have given her the password to our joint social media account (with fake names) where we often had sexy chats and exchanged naked pictures through private messages. The wife called me and threatened to sue me for adultery and to post my sexy pictures online.

Last week the wife made good on her threat and posted my sexy pictures in the social media account I used to share with her husband. She captioned the pictures “whore,” “homewrecker,” “nymphomaniac,” etc. Then in her own account she posted pictures of her and her husband sitting very close together and holding hands, with the caption #walangpokpoknamakakabuwagsaamin

The husband has remained quiet through all this. He has not even called me to explain. And now I am afraid his wife will post our sex videos next. What can I do to make her remove the pictures she posted and to prevent her from posting the sex videos? Can she sue me for adultery? Can I sue her for posting my sexy photos online? Now, I have no love left for that man, only hate. Can I sue him alongside his wife? Please help me.

Lost in Emotion


Dear Lost in Emotion,

I am sorry you had to go through such a painful experience. But every experience can be valuable as a life lesson. I hope that, as you walked away from that disastrous affair, you took home some critical realizations that would help you in your future decisions concerning relationships. The most important of these is: few Filipino men leave their wives to marry their mistress. It’s the culture; affairs are tolerated anyway. Plus, Filipino husbands don’t want to be seen as the bad guys even in a crumbling marriage, so most of them simply have affairs and wait for the wife to get exasperated until she’s the one who walks away. Et voila, he’s now the pitiful, aggrieved husband who’s been abandoned by his wife.

Another important lesson: when caught by their wives, spineless cheating husbands will sing like a canary strapped to a hookah shooting truth serum directly into its  brain. The strong ones usually hold up well under interrogation and would do whatever is necessary to protect your identity, but the scum types will readily confess to everything as if they were already on their deathbeds. They’ll disavow any feelings for the mistress and even blame her for tempting him. It’s all about self-preservation for these mean boys.

Now that you know better, you can protect yourself in the future. Remember, it’s not kids that say the darnest things; lovers do. In the heat of passion, lovers will sometimes promise things they can’t deliver. Trust not in words but in actions. When in doubt, walk away and find yourself a real man. Life is too precious to waste on spineless boys in grown-up bodies. I know because I’ve babysat a few of them in my time.

You were on the wrong side of the law in that affair, but so was the wife in posting your sexy pictures online and calling you derogatory names. You could seek assistance from the NBI or PNP anti-cybercrime unit and you may file a complaint based on the Cybercrime Prevention Act (RA 10175).

Yes, you may include the husband as respondent. Let him deny it. You may also obtain a temporary restraining order from the courts directing the spouses to remove your pictures online and to refrain from posting any similar pictures, videos, GIFs, screenshots, etc. that show or depict you in like manner.

Be aware that suing the wife may rattle her into suing you as well. She may file a case against you for damages, claiming you alienated her husband’s affections. Her threat of an adultery charge is baseless, because it applies only to a married woman who has sex with another man.

Don’t ever again trust anyone with your naked pictures and intimate videos, especially your boyfriend. We’ve all seen how this has ruined reputations and dimmed the lustre of stars. I know it’s tempting to videotape intimate moments; we all have that exhibitionist-voyeur inside us, and many of us secretly want to be porn stars in private. But be cautious. Never show your face, even if the video remains in your possession.

And what were you doing stalking your lover and his family at the mall? First of all, I urge you to avoid married men from now on. Spare yourself the pain and the possible lawsuits. You seem sweet and still on the soft side. Affairs are only for the hardened, the jaded. But if, against all advice, you choose the same type of lover again in the future, don’t stalk his family. If you do, you open yourself to criminal charges or a civil case for hefty sums of money in damages, depending what degree of suffering an aggrieved wife can concoct in her tortured mind.

I wish you well, and I hope this advice helps you become wiser, and lost in emotion no more.

Sincerely,

Atty. Reeza

Atty. Reeza Singzon is a litigation lawyer specializing in family law and civil law. For inquiries, she may be reached at reeza.singzon@gmail.com.