COMMENTARY: Can a lousy sex life be a ground for annulment? 

In this installment, we answer a question sent by an interested reader: Can a lousy sex life be a ground for annulment of marriage?

 

It depends.

 

If the cause is poor technique due to mere inexperience or lack of adequate instruction, it cannot be a ground to dissolve the marriage.

 

Technique can be learned, and even the uninitiated learns fast enough if the desire to improve is present and the chosen instruction material is at least partly scientific and not merely prurient.
     

If the cause is some physical disability that merely makes satisfactory sex difficult (but not impossible), it also cannot be a ground to dissolve the marriage.
 

Physical disabilities are readily observable, especially for lovers since they presumably only have eyes for each other. If they proceed with the marriage anyway, they accept the disability and signify their willingness to work around it.  

 

But if a spouse is utterly physically incapable of consummating the marriage and such incapacity appears to be incurable, the marriage may be annulled.

 

If the cause of sexual dissatisfaction is penis length or girth (too much or too little), or vagina size (too big or too small), there is no ground to dissolve the marriage as long the size of the organ still allows normal intercourse.

 

In a case decided in 1997, after medical examination, the husband was found to have a penis that lengthened to only about 3 inches during excitement, but the Supreme Court did not dissolve the marriage on that ground. The Court instead found psychological incapacity in the husband for consistently refusing to have sex with his wife.
 

It was in fact the wife who filed the petition to dissolve her marriage claiming that her husband was impotent and a closet homosexual because he never showed her his penis.

 

She also claimed she had observed her husband using an eyebrow pencil and sometimes his mother’s cleansing cream.

 

While the husband admitted they’ve had no sexual relations at all, he claimed this was because his wife always avoided him. He also claimed the one time he forced her to have sex, he did not continue because she was shaking and said she did not like it.  

 

The Court commendably found nothing wrong with the husband's 3-inch penis and use of an eyebrow pencil but still ruled that his senseless and protracted refusal to have marital relations is equivalent to psychological incapacity, since one of the essential marital obligations is to procreate children. And the Court said constant non-fulfillment of this obligation will destroy the integrity or wholeness of the marriage.

 

Indeed, refusing to have regular sexual relations or displaying selfish or narcissistic tendencies in marital relations is abnormal. A professional evaluation by a licensed psychologist may be sought to verify if indeed there is a psychological disorder in the affected spouse and to clinically identify the type of disorder. After that, a petition may be filed to seek judicial declaration of the absolute nullity of the marriage on the ground of psychological incapacity.    

 

In a case decided by the Supreme Court in 2009, the petitioner-wife complained of unsatisfactory sexual relations with her husband. She claimed that they only had sex once a month and she never even enjoyed it. Every time she discussed the problem with her husband he would dismiss it and tell her sex was sacred and should not be enjoyed or abused.

 

After psychological evaluation by a professional, it was found that the root cause of the husband’s problem was a cross-identification with his mother who was the dominant figure in his family. His prolonged dependence on a parent of the opposite sex crippled his psychological functioning related to sex, self-confidence, independence, responsibility, and maturity.

 

The psychologist also found that the problem existed prior to the marriage, but became manifest only after the wedding due to marital stresses and demands.

 

The Court granted the petition and declared the marriage null and void from the beginning, having concluded from the evidence that the husband failed to have satisfactory marital relations due to his inability to distinguish between his mother and the wife.

 

In another case, the Supreme Court repeated that psychosexual anomalies are manifestations of a sociopathic personality anomaly.

 

In such cases, there is no marriage to speak of in the first place, as the same is void from the very beginning on the ground of psychological incapacity.

 

In the words of the Supreme Court: “In dissolving marital bonds on account of either party’s psychological incapacity, the Court is not demolishing the foundation of families, but it is actually protecting the sanctity of marriage, because it refuses to allow a person afflicted with a psychological disorder, who cannot comply with or assume the essential marital obligations, from remaining in that sacred bond.”

 

However, there are strict criteria. Psychological incapacity must be characterized by: (a) gravity; (b) juridical antecedence (it must be rooted in the history of the spouse antedating the marriage, although the overt manifestations may emerge only after the marriage); and (c) incurability.

 

It must be stressed that the incapacity should be mental, not physical, even though the symptoms may manifest physically.

 

The incapacity must also be present at the time of the wedding even though it only manifests after. This is consistent with the law which states: “A marriage contracted by any party who, at the time of the celebration, was psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations of marriage, shall likewise be void even if such incapacity becomes manifest only after its solemnization.”

 

Under the law, among these marital obligations is the duty to live together and observe mutual love. For spouses, this duty finds fulfillment in sexual intimacy. Consequently, a spouse’s persistent refusal or utter lack of interest to have marital sexual relations devastates the marriage.  

 

But what if a spouse is at the other extreme of the libidometer and demands constant sex to the exhaustion of the other? 

 

Extremely high libido by itself caused by biological or genetic tendency is not a ground to annul the marriage. But if it hinders the spouses from living normal lives, a psychological evaluation may be sought to determine if there is an underlying personality disorder that is causing the hypersexuality.

What if a spouse is sexually perverted? Or is habitually unfaithful?

 

Perversion and sexual infidelity do not by themselves constitute grounds to dissolve the marriage unless it can be medically shown to be a manifestation of a disordered personality which makes a spouse completely unable to discharge the essential obligations of marriage. So, again, a psychological evaluation must first be sought.

 

What if a spouse turned out to be homosexual and displays utter lack of sexual interest in a spouse of the opposite sex?

 

Lesbianism and homosexuality are grounds for legal separation only. After the petition is granted, the spouses may only live apart and divide their properties but they will still be married to each other. 

 

But if the homosexuality or lesbianism was concealed from the other spouse, it is a ground for annulment on the legal premise that the consent of the aggrieved spouse to the marriage was obtained by fraud.

 

However, said ground for annulment is unavailable if the aggrieved spouse, with full knowledge of the other spouse's sexual orientation, afterwards freely cohabited with the homosexual or lesbian spouse as husband and wife.
 

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Atty. Reeza Singzon is a trial lawyer specializing in family law and civil law. For questions or comments she may be reached at reeza.singzon@gmail.com