A Utah woman was ordered by a judge to give censored, intimate photos of herself to her ex-husband in divorce proceedings, court documents show

• Lindsay Marsh filed for divorce from her husband of 25 years, Christopher Marsh, in April 2021.
• During their marriage, Lindsay Marsh gave her husband intimate boudoir photos with messages on them.

A Utah woman was ordered to hand over intimate photos of herself to her ex-husband, provided that they are censored.

Lindsay Marsh filed for a divorce from her husband, Christopher Marsh, in April 2021 after 25 years of marriage. And while the ex-couple mostly figured out how to split their assets, according to The Salt Lake Tribune, one point of contention has been whether the ex-husband is entitled to an album of boudoir photos — some of which contained inscriptions — that Lindsay Marsh gave to him earlier in their marriage.

A Davis County judge ordered in July that Christopher Marsh can have the photos, but with a few stipulations, court documents reviewed by Insider showed.

In his ruling, 2nd District Judge Michael Edwards wrote that the photos must be given back to the original photographer so that they can censor the photos in a way that keeps the inscription visible.

"The Court orders that the parties are to turn these photos over to the person who took the pictures originally and produced the photo books," the ruling stated. "That person is then to do whatever it takes to modify the pages of the pictures so that any photographs of the Petitioner in lingerie or that sort of thing or even without clothing are obscured and taken out but the words are maintained for the memory's sake."

Lindsay Marsh told KSL-TV, a Salt Lake City news station, that the order felt "violating."

"You don't know where to turn because you don't know the law," Lindsay Marsh told the station. "And you have not only your ex-husband who you were married to for years (thinking) that forcing you to distribute basically porn is OK … you have his attorney that also thinks that's OK. And then you bring it in front of a judge, and he thinks it's OK."

Christopher Marsh told Insider that he only wanted the inscriptions and not the photos.

"They were notes written at a time when Lindsay meant what she wrote," he said. "They were loving moments."

Once Lindsay Marsh approached the original photographer — a close friend who ran a boudoir photography business — the friend initially declined to edit the photos, according to The Tribune. Lindsay Marsh told the newspaper that her friend argued that it could be damaging to her business.

The judge then ordered in August for a third party, a man Lindsay Marsh did not know, to edit the photos, according to the newspaper.

"I just want to clarify," she recalled asking the judge's clerks' office to The Tribune. "The judge has ordered me to give nude photos of my body to a third party that I don't know without my consent?"

That's when the original photographer agreed to change the photos.

According to The Tribune, the friend digitally altered the photos and put black boxes over Marsh's body while preserving the messages.

Lindsay Marsh was ordered to keep the photos for 90 days in case her ex-husband has any objections to the alterations.

She told The Tribune that she plans to have a burning party as soon as she can destroy the photos.