NASSAU- A gay man has been granted a divorce by the Supreme Court on the grounds that his wife subjected him to cruelty during their marriage.
Justice Diane Stewart dissolved the marriage under the provisions of the Matrimonial Act.
The judge said that the husband’s homosexuality was a ground for the wife to seek a divorce.
However, the wife, who is 19 years older than her husband, claimed that she accepted his sexuality and wanted to save the marriage.
The court questioned the wife’s desire to remain married.
The judge said, “There is or must be another reason for wishing to remain in a marriage where you know and accept that your husband will not love you as you should be loved.”
The couple married on April 18, 2015. Prior to their union, they lived together after his parents kicked him out because they did not accept his homosexuality.
The husband said his wife’s attitude changed towards him after they married.
He said she would call him homosexual and bisexual to belittle him and threw him out of the house multiple times.
He said they grew distant and intimacy between them dwindled.
As a result, he said he began drinking and smoking weed, which caused him to get into problems with the authorities.
Their fights resumed when he returned to the marital home on his wife’s invitation.
He said his wife would involve relatives and friends in their disputes, causing him embarrassment.
The man moved out for good in August 2019 and is living with his gay lover. He filed for divorce in January 2021.
The wife denied the allegations of cruelty. She claimed that she learned that her husband was an “active” homosexual one year into their marriage, “as she saw it with her own eyes.”
The wife said the “things” her husband considered cruel were her way of helping him to build a life of value.
She said she was “trying to help him change the course of his life.”
The wife said the husband wanted out of the marriage to start a life with his male friend.
Stewart found the woman’s attempts to control her husband and her name calling amounted to cruelty and granted the divorce.
Copyright Bahamas Court News 2022
