G.R. No. 162049, 13 April 2007

FACTS:

Petitioner and respondent were college sweethearts. At the time of their marriage they were already awaiting their first child. Since both are still student of medicine and pharmacy (respectively) they lived with Narciso’s parents who they depend financially. They had four children.

Mr. Narciso filed a petition for nullification of their marriage when he found out that their eldest child had is not his.

A marriage counselor concluded from meetings with the petitioner that the marriage was dysfunctional, destructive, and reconciliation was out of the question since he claims he would go insane if he were to go back to his wife.

She concluded that respondent was also psychologically incapacitated to perform the marital obligations because she knew, from the start, that her husband was going to be a doctor, yet she did not give him the support and understanding that was expected of a doctor’s wife.

A housemaid also testified that the couple was always quarreling because respondent was always jealous of petitioner’s classmates.

The petitioner underwent a psychiatric test that showed he is a perfectionist, short tempered, critical, argumentative and irritable when people do not meet his expectations.

The respondent refused to submit to the examination and claimed that their marital problems began when she caught the petitioner illicit affait with a certain Dr. Lucila Posadas, to which the petitioner denied the affair.

The RTC held that both are psychologically incapacitated to perform obligations and declared their marriage as null and void.

The respondent filed an appeal to which the court of appeals reversed the decision of the trial court and declared that the marriage still subsists.

ISSUE:
Whether the parties are psychological incapacitated to declare marriage null and void.

RULING:

No.The court stated that in the present case, the spouse’s frequent squabbles and respondent’s refusal to sleep with petitioner and be supportive to him do not constitute psychological incapacity. The records show that petitioner and respondent were living in harmony in the first few years of their marriage, which bore them four children. Psychological incapacity must be more than just a difficulty, refusal or neglect in the performance of some marital obligations, it is essential that they must be shown to be incapable of doing so, due to some psychological illness existing at the time of the celebration of the marriage.

* Case digest by Mary Jade L. Capin , LLB-1, Andres Bonifacio Law School, SY 2017-2018