I Knew It Was Wrong But I Stayed: Understanding Emotional Dependency and Revictimization Among Male Victims of Online Romantic Fraud in the Philippines

Romance fraud has quietly become one of the most damaging forms of cybercrime, yet the men it harms rarely appear in the research. Existing victimization literature skews heavily toward female samples, and the particular way’s masculine identity shapes vulnerability, silence, and recovery remain poorly understood. This study draws on the lived accounts of 20 male romance fraud victims in Zamboanga del Norte, Philippines, examined through Moustakas's (1994) transcendental phenomenological reduction, to address that gap directly. The analysis traces victimization from first contact through emotional investment, financial exploitation, and its psychological aftermath but the study's central contribution lies in the identification and conceptualization of recurring post discovery engagement pattern. Across 12 of 20 participants, a recurring pattern emerged: men who continued engaging with a known fraudster after the deception had already been confirmed. This study conceptualizes that pattern as Romantic Fraud Attachment Syndrome (RFAS), a psycho-relational construct — not a clinical category — that captures the cognitive and emotional asymmetry sustaining involvement after discovery. Two forms are identified: attachment-driven continuation, where the accumulated emotional investment outweighs the cost of withdrawal, and identity conscription, where masculine self-concept becomes entangled in proving the relationship was real. The findings extend Whitty's (2013) Scammer's Persuasive Techniques Model into the post-discovery phase; apply hegemonic masculinity as a structural and not merely contextual variable in fraud vulnerability, and surface culturally grounded mechanisms that Western models have not accounted for. Practical implications point toward emotional-stage intervention, anonymized reporting infrastructure, and victim support redesigned around RFAS dynamics.