ONE time, I was having breakfast with my former Irish colleague and Belgian-American boss. The three of us are married and so the talk centered on naughty kids and surviving married life. Both almost choked on their coffees when I told them that there is no divorce in the Philippines. They simply could never imagine not having an option to get out of marriage! Pretty soon, they began chattering about the best reasons why we should have divorce: infidelity, physical and verbal abuse and falling out of love.
In a different setting, my mom’s househelp had been married and had three kids with her husband. But this husband got their neighbor pregnant. She knew about it, (hell, the entire community knew about it!) and was willing to live with it. But eventually, it was her husband who asked her to leave. We have no divorce and she could not even pronounce annulment properly. So now, they live separate lives with their respective partners.
Through mommy friends, I have got wind of a rumor that annulment is cheaper in Butuan. Every now and then, a hush-hush chika would circulate that so and so is seriously thinking of having her marriage annulled and is consulting with lawyers on diplomatic win-win agreements.
On a more personal level, having what my dad calls as an inborn dormant volcanic temper, I have challenged my husband several times to leave me. The number of times is almost equal to the number of times I have threatened to leave him. Although not a daily occurrence, after almost a decade of being married, not a year would pass that this would not happen.
Once, I even emailed him an annulment form with instructions for him to print it, sign it and return it back to me. I stewed for about two days. By then, I have already finished making a draft of the division of what little we have and a written agreement for raising our only child. When I realized I was being ignored, I demanded that the signed annulment form be returned -- pronto!
My husband calmly replied with, “Buang ka, dili ta magbulag oi.”
I read somewhere that the secret to a lasting marriage is that both of you should not give up at the same time. This is easy if your spouse has the same patience and tolerance as my husband’s. After all, I made him wait seven years before marrying him and now that we are, I have an annual impulse to ask him for an annulment or a divorce (even if we don’t have it!).
Unfortunately, there are people who are intensely physically, verbally or psychologically abused by their spouses. Some fight the daily shame of keeping a facade of a happy married life when everyone knows who gets the spouse’s libido up. Forever in hell is definitely not the kind of love story they envisioned the day they decided to get married.
For the sake of their sanity and safety, as well as that of their children, I could see the merits of an annulment. Yes, even if it is not really the same as divorce.
But I certainly hope that making annulment easy would not lead to young couples to just as easily give up on being married. Because you see, if my husband did return that annulment form I gave him, I would most likely react with, “Buang ka, bulagan gyud diay ko nimo?!?”
Cheers to being married!
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