Disordered personality

Certain personality disorders can be considered as psychological incapacity and a ground for declaration of nullity of marriage. This is illustrated and explained in this case of Boysie.

Boysie belongs to an affluent family whose father was very domineering and whose mother was very unhappy. While financially well off the family was never intact as mother and children were practically treated as robots. Boysie was very much attached to his parents and depended on them for decisions. He acted in self denigrating manner and displayed a self-defeating attitude that encourage other people to take advantage of him.

Thus when he met his girlfriend Gina, he agreed on impulse to wed her in civil rites. Then they just maintained their relationship but never lived together as husband and wife. He found Gina to be as domineering as his father such that they started quarreling very often. Because of Gina’s domineering ways, Boysie just avoided her and preferred not to confront her. Then a year later he decided to stop seeing Gina and started dating other girls. Thereafter he received prank calls warning him to stop dating other girls as he was already a married man. That was the time when he found out upon inquiry that his marriage was for real and was not fake as he was initially made to believe.

Feeling confused and at a loss on what action to take, he ran to his mother for advice. His mother told him to seek legal help. Thus upon his lawyer’s advice, Boysie filed an action for declaration of nullity of his marriage to Gina on the ground of psychological incapacity under Article 36 of the Family Code.

At the trial, Boysie presented a psychological expert who reported to the court his findings that Boysie was suffering from mixed self-defeating and dependent personality disorder brought about by dysfunctional family. He also suffered from partner relationship problem during his marriage with Gina which according to the expert was not really a marriage since Boysie did not understand what it meant to be really married and after the marriage there was no consummation as there was no sexual intercourse at all. Thus the expert concluded that Boysie’s personality disorder was grave and incurable and already existent at the time of the celebration of the marriage. Is the expert testimony sufficient evidence to establish Boysie’s psychological incapacity as a ground for declaration of nullity of his marriage to Gina?

Yes. By the very nature of Article 36, courts, despite having the primary task and burden of decision making, must consider as essential and should be guided by experience, the findings of experts and researchers in psychological disciplines and by decisions of church tribunals.

In this case, it has been sufficiently established by the testimony of the expert that Boysie was suffering from a dependent personality disorder that was grave and incurable and had a deeply rooted cause.

Dependent personality disorder is characterized by a pattern of dependent and submissive behavior. Such individuals usually lack self-esteem and frequently belittle their capabilities: they fear and are easily hurt by others’ comments. At times they actually bring about dominance by others through a quest for over-protection. They may be unable to make everyday decisions without advice or reassurance from others, may allow others to make most of their important decisions, tend to agree with people even when they believe they are wrong, have difficulty starting projects or doing things on their own, volunteer to do things that are demeaning in-order to get approval from other people, feel uncomfortable or helpless when alone and are often preoccupied with fears of being abandoned.

Particularly, personality disorders are long-standing inflexible ways of behaving that are not so much severe mental disorders as dysfunctional styles of living. These disorders affect all areas of functioning and, beginning in childhood or adolescence create problems for those who display them and for others.

In this case, it has been shown that Boysie is indeed suffering from psychological incapacity in the form of personality disorder that renders him unable to perform the essential obligations of marriage. Hence the marriage of Boysie and Gina is indeed null and void (Halili vs. Halili and Republic, G.R. 1654254, June 9, 2009) 

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