Dear Atty. Joji,

I have been married for several years and my husband has been an alcoholic even before we got married. Throughout the marriage, his drinking has affected every aspect of our relationship. He is emotionally absent, irresponsible and unable to provide consistent financial and emotional support. He refuses treatment and repeatedly fails to perform his basic obligations as a husband. Given these circumstances, do I have valid ground for annulment?

Marcus

Dear Marcus,

In Andal v. Tan-Andal (G.R. No. 196359, 11 May 2021), the Supreme Court clarified and liberalized the application of psychological incapacity under Article 36 of the Family Code, which is a ground for the declaration of nullity of marriage. The Court emphasized that psychological incapacity is not a medical concept, but a legal one. What the law examines is a spouse’s persistent inability to comply with the essential obligations of marriage, not the presence of a clinical or psychiatric diagnosis.

The grounds for annulment include: (1) lack of parental consent for parties aged 18 to 21; (2) fraud; (3) force, intimidation, or undue influence; (4) physical incapacity to consummate the marriage; and (5) the existence of a serious and incurable sexually transmissible disease. These marriages are considered valid until annulled by a court. Psychological incapacity, on the other hand, falls under Article 36 and renders the marriage void from the beginning, meaning it is treated as legally inexistent.

Tan-Andal, however, clarified that psychological incapacity, as envisioned by the Family Code Revision Committee, is, again, a legal concept. Instead of being a medical illness, psychological incapacity is “[a] durable or enduring [aspect] of a person’s personality, called ‘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 or her to understand and, more important, to comply with his or her essential marital obligations.”

As a legal concept, psychological incapacity cannot be characterized as incurable. Instead, it is permanent relative to a specific partner. However, psychological incapacity can be grave, not in the sense that it is a serious or dangerous mental illness, but that it excludes “mild characterological peculiarities, mood changes, occasional emotional outbursts[.]” The incapacity must be shown to be due to a genuinely serious psychic cause. And, as explicitly required by the law, the incapacity must have existed before or during the celebration of the marriage. (Constantino-Datu vs Datu, G.R. No. 209278, 15 September 2021)

Ultimately, each case is decided based on its own facts. If a spouse can demonstrate a consistent pattern of behavior showing the other’s inability to assume the essential obligations of marriage, and that such incapacity existed from the very start of the union, a petition for declaration of nullity may prosper.

Hope this helps.

Atty. Joji Alonso