COMMENTARY: Can a lousy sex life

be a ground for annulment?(GMA

NEWS ONLINE)
Published July 2, 2015 1:44pm

By REEZA SINGZON

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 mothers cleansing cream.

While the husband admitted theyve 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 husbands 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
partys 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 spouses 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.

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