Financial insecurity deemed cruelty: Delhi HC
Divorce occuring in Delhi HC due to financial discrepancy due to husband's joblessness, dowry demands, alcoholism and gambling addiction. Find out some financial challenges in marriages and how to tackle them.
In a recent decision, the Delhi High Court stated that financial insecurity might be deemed a kind of mental cruelty. The judge made this statement while approving a woman’s divorce appeal based on cruelty and desertion.
A division bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Neena Bansal Krishna noticed that the appellant (woman) was working while the respondent (husband) was jobless, resulting in a significant financial discrepancy between them. The court determined that the husband’s failure to find a permanent job caused the wife emotional anguish, which constituted mental cruelty.
The High Court granted the woman’s appeal, reversing a 2007 family court ruling that denied her divorce petition. The pair married on April 9, 1989, but divorced on November 27, 1996, after nearly seven years of marriage and no children.
The woman said that her husband’s family originally told her that there would be no dowry demands and that she would be respected. However, upon the death of her father-in-law, the husband and his family began pestering her for money, demanding investments in the husband’s business, and claiming a separate apartment.
While acknowledging the woman’s assertions, the court stated that they lacked adequate proof and were properly addressed by the family court. The bench stressed that the wife had a successful job before to marriage, but the husband’s income was sporadic. He failed to find consistent work and turned to booze and gambling. This income imbalance naturally resulted in marital problems.
The High Court emphasized that mental cruelty is difficult to describe, but it was obvious in the wife’s difficulty adjusting to a household in which the husband was financially insecure and relied on his mother for support. Furthermore, the husband falsely accused the wife of having illicit associations, which the court ruled to be unfounded and very detrimental to her image.
Furthermore, the court found that the pair had been separated since November 1996, with no significant reconciliation efforts made in the previous 27 years, showing an irreversible collapse of their marriage.
Here’s a few money issues that have caused marriage problems, have a look:
- Using Incomes Jointly: When both spouses work and they can’t agree on financial matters or even find the time to discuss them, they may opt to divide the expenses or allocate them in some other way that looks fair and reasonable. After the bills have been paid, each couple can spend the remaining funds as they see appropriate. Investopedia says, “It can even lead to relationship-ruining behavior. When one spouse hides money from the other, it’s known as financial infidelity, and it can be as serious as the term implies.”
- Floundering in Past Debts: Most people arrive at the altar with some sort of financial burden, whether it’s college debt, credit card debt, or a gambling problem. When discussing income, expenditure, and debt payment, if one partner has more debt than the other, tempers might flare. People in similar situations may find consolation in the fact that debts brought into a marriage remain with the person who incurred them and are not extended to a spouse until they stand up as guarantor or beneficiary of the riches.
- Power Play in Marriages; Power plays frequently take place in one of four scenarios: One partner works for a living, while the other does not, both partners want to work, but one is unemployed, one spouse makes far more than the other or one spouse hails from a wealthy family, whereas the other does not. When one or more of these scenarios exists, the person who produces or has the more money frequently attempts to dictate the couple’s spending preferences. Although there may be some logic to this theory, it is critical that both partners realize they are part of a team.
In order to remedy such issues that can cause major flareups, it is paramount that couples communicate, seek couples therapy if need be, invest in a CA, set financial goals together, deal with debt in unison, sign a prenup (India doesn’t have a prenup in the legal system, but one avail Contracts Act) and curb projecting ego at spouses who we love and care for.
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