Facebook baby shower shames husband, costs wife in divorce ruling

A MOTHER'S enthusiasm to publicise her baby shower with a posting on Facebook ultimately cost her half of her husband’s R2.3m pension fund benefits.

- DAILY NEWS REPORTER

That determination was made at the Gauteng High Court recently, in response to the application made by the husband to have her portion of his pension payout, upon divorce, forfeited.

The husband was incensed when he got wind of the post and Judge Noluntu Bam, who presided over the matter, believed that the post would have humiliated the man.

During proceedings it emerged that the wife had another child - her third - with someone else, following a romantic relationship that also involved a friend of her husband.

It was not clearly established from court proceedings and the ruling who the father of the child was.

After realising that his wife had been in an extramarital affair, the husband kicked her out of ther marital home, and the news of the baby shower still came as a shock.

When the matter came before the court, both parties agreed to the divorce.

The only issue to be decided was whether the wife should forfeit the R2.3 million benefit arising from the husband's pension fund. The parties were married in community of property in January 2011.