Psychological incapacity sufficient to declare a marriage void is established when three requisites concur: juridical antecedence, incurability and gravity.
The Supreme Court reiterated this principle in connection with the declaration of marriage as null and void based on both parties’ psychological incapacity (Juanito B. Soto vs. Cassandra Reyes-Soto (GR 249759, April 22, 2026).
First, the incapacity must be marked by juridical antecedence, in that it existed at the time of the celebration of the marriage, even if it manifested only after. It does not require proof that the psychological incapacity was clinically diagnosed at the time of the celebration of the marriage. It may be proven through narrative and testimonial evidence.
Second, it must be incurable in a legal, not medical, sense, referring to a condition so enduring and persistent, particularly in relation to the specific spouse, that the marriage is renewed beyond repair. Incurability may be inferred from an undeniable pattern of failed marital functioning over time, that the parties’ incapacity was not situational or remediable.
Third, the incapacity must be of such gravity that it arises from a genuinely psychic cause, a standard that does not require medical severity but excludes situations where the failure of the marriage is attributable merely to refusal, neglect, or ordinary difficulty in making the marital relationship work. Gravity is established when the evidence reveals an utter inability or insensitivity to give meaning and substance to the marriage.
These requisites are not abstract or mechanical standards. They are assessed from the totality of the evidence and considered in the context of the spouses’ lived marital realities.
The Court ruled in the Soto case that the evidence revealed a marriage impaired at its very core by the parties’ incompatible and mutually reinforcing psychological limitations.
On the one hand, the husband entered the marriage emotionally dependent on his mother, unable to express affection or reach outward with emotional assurance, and constrained by unresolved emotional conflicts that inhibited intimacy and partnership. His difficulty in separating filial attachment from marital commitment prevented him from becoming emotionally present to his wife and child.
On the other hand, the wife came into the marriage bearing the imprint of emotional deprivation in her formative years, longing for affection and affirmation, yet responding to disappointment not with engagement but with withdrawal, passivity, and unexpressed resentment. Her expectations of love remained unmet, while her manner of coping rendered her unable to bridge the growing emotional distance between them.
The Court concluded that the case falls squarely within Article 36 of the Family Code, which recognizes that some unions are void from the beginning not because of moral fault, but because the spouses were never psychologically capable of entering into the kind of partnership that marriage demands.
“Every relationship bears its own shape. Some marriages are void from the very beginning, not because of loud or conspicuous dysfunction but because of quiet and deeply rooted tears, anxieties, and limitations that prevent the spouses from understanding and assuming the essential obligations of marriage. The unspoken inability to fully connect with one’s partner can be as destructive as conflict that is overt and volatile. Silent dysfunction, manifested in emotional distance, withdrawal, and resignation, can be no less corrosive to the marital bond than more visible forms of incapacity, and it is no less within the contemplation of Article 36 of the Family Code.”
The Court emphasized that “the law protects the institution of marriage not by insisting on its preservation at all costs but by distinguishing true marriages from those that, from their inception, lacked the essential psychological foundations for mutual commitment, intimacy, and shared life.”
The Court clarified that Article 36 of the Family Code is not hostile to marriage.
“It is, in truth, protective of this institution, it acknowledges that marriage is among the most meaningful acts two people can undertake together. To compel individuals to remain bound in a union that, from the start, functioned as a psychological case rather than a shared life of freedom and meaning does not strengthen marriage. It only transforms marriage into a site of quiet misery, erodes its dignity, and risks deterring others from entering it at all.”
The Court added: “In recognizing and ending marriages that were void from the beginning, Article 36 of the Family Code affirms the social and human value of marriage as an institution meant to elevate, not diminish, the lives of those who enter into it.”
Atty. Dennis R. Gorecho is the junior partner who heads the Seafarers’ Division of the Sapalo Velez Bundang Bulilan Law Offices. For comments, e-mail info@sapalovelez.com, or call 0908-8665786.
