When abandonment becomes psychological incapacity

In Perez-Ferraris v. Ferraris (G.R. No. 162368, 17 July 2006), the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of a wife’s Petition for Declaration of Nullity of Marriage. The Supreme Court ruled that, “[the husband’s] alleged mixed personality disorder, the “leaving-the-house” attitude whenever they quarreled, the violent tendencies during epileptic attacks, the sexual infidelity, the abandonment and lack of support, and his preference for spending more time with his band mates than his family, are not rooted in some debilitating psychological condition but a mere refusal or unwillingness to assume the essential obligations of marriage.”

Almost eighteen years later, the Supreme Court was confronted with a case that had almost a similar factual milieu with Ferraris, but it ruled differently. In De la Cruz-Lanuza v. Lanuza Jr. and the Republic of the Philippines (G.R. No. 242362, 17 April 2024), the Supreme Court nullified a marriage based on the husband’s psychological incapacity as manifested by “infidelity, failure to give support to his wife and children, and unjustified absence from his family [which] are all indicative that he is not cognizant of the duties and responsibilities of a husband and father.”

Wherein lies the difference? An examination of the decisions reveal three significant distinctions between the cases of Ferraris and Lanuza.

Unlike Lanuza, Ferraris was decided before the promulgation of the case of Tan-Andal v. Andal (G.R. 196359, 11 May 2021) where the Supreme Court modified the guidelines on how to establish psychological incapacity as a ground to nullify a marriage. The Supreme Court stressed that psychological incapacity is a legal and not strictly a medical concept. As such, psychological incapacity need not be something to be healed and its root cause need not be clinically identified.

Instead, it is an incapacity that is so enduring and persistent with respect to a specific partner and contemplates a situation where the couple’s respective personality structures are so incompatible that the only result of the union would be the irreparable breakdown of the marriage. There must be clear and convincing proof of the enduring aspects of a person’s personality structure, which manifests itself through clear acts of dysfunctionality that undermines the family. The spouse’s personality structure must make it impossible for him/her to understand and to comply with his/her marital obligations.

Applying Tan-Andal, the Supreme Court concluded in Lanuza that the totality of evidence presented showed that the husband did not understand and failed to comply with his obligations. After his marriage in 1984, the husband failed to provide food for his family as he would come home late after a night out with friends; treated his wife as an ordinary house occupant; and engaged in illicit affairs.

After the husband left his family in 1994, the only instance that he visited his children was in 1999, when he made a one-hour appearance during a recognition day in school. The husband also contracted marriage several times with different women which led to his indictment for the crime of bigamy.

The Supreme Court was deciding within this context when it held that, “Unjustified absence from the marital home for decades may be considered as part of the totality of evidence that a person is psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential obligations of marriage.”

Further, although both wives in Ferraris and Lanuza opted to present a psychologist as their expert witness, only the psychologist in Lanuza was able to prove the credibility of his findings since it was based not only upon the narrative of the wife concerned (the case in Ferraris), but also the interview he conducted with the wife’s sister and the spouses’ child.

More importantly, dissimilar to the vague and inconclusive explanation in Ferraris, the psychologist in Lanuza was able to clearly and specifically establish all the elements of psychological incapacity. The husband’s lack of recognition that he had responsibilities to his wife and children showed the gravity of his personality disorder. As to juridical antecedence, the psychologist explained that the husband’s personality disorder appeared to have been fostered by how he was raised by his family as he was deprived of appropriate parental supervision and his parents’ lenient attitude encouraged him to be extremely assertive, which are manifestations of narcissistic personality disorder with underlying borderline personality traits.

Meanwhile, there is incurability since persons diagnosed with such disorder strongly deny that they are mentally ill, reject the idea of seeking professional help, and therefore refuse any form of treatment.

For more of Dean Nilo Divina’s legal tidbits, please visit www.divinalaw.com. For comments and questions, please send an email to cad@divinalaw.com.