The Valentine day divorce (Part 1)

 By Chinyere Obi-Obasi

This particular divorce proceedings has been causing Justice Amadi sleepless nights.

The couple in the divorce saga -Mr and Mrs Acha look like siblings. The man is of average height, dark in complexion and handsome. The wife is a few inches shorter than him and also dark in complexion. She is what one can call a natural beauty. She has a quiet disposition but has been very firm with her demands as the petitioner.

The couple had three children already in their 20s and doing well as they were all graduates and working.

As a judge he hardly got involved in the matters before him but for a strange reason maybe because of the respondent’s attitude he became very interested in their getting back together. He was determined to do everything he can to ensure they never got a divorce.

One of the daughters had come into his office literarily cried asking him not to grant her mother the divorce she so desperately craved for. She wanted her parents and they the children to be together as one happy family.

The Petitioner was bent on getting a divorce. The judge has applied every trick in the world to lengthen the case. He granted many adjournments sometimes at his instance for report of settlement and at the next proceeding it was reported that neither her nor her counsel showed up.

However, something struck him. In most divorce proceedings, each party tried to make themselves look like saints and their partners the devils. The former packed as many lies as possible into their pleadings.

In this case the Petitioner had alleged all kinds of abuse; verbal, psychological and sexual abuse. The one that dealt the most brutal blow to her and hurt her most and even got her clinically depressed was his abandoning her and the children for 5 years.

The Respondent was contrite and in pain. He behaved more like someone who was given pearls and he foolishly threw them to pigs. He wanted the tiniest opportunity to make amends; to win that best father and best husband award if ever one was given.

The woman had alleged that he changed as soon as he began to see money.

The judge observed that Respondent did not write anything in his Defence. He just stated he did not want a divorce.

Unlike in cases where the men came back broke and sick. The Respondent was strong, healthy and still rich. He was obviously still very much in love with his wife. The judge saw him many times looking at his wife longingly trying to make eye contact but the woman just wasn’t interested. She sat straight and neither turned to her right nor her left.

The Respondent’s counsel was well known to the judge and they had discussed this matter a couple of times in his chambers sometimes with the respondent being present. On one of such occasions, the Respondent had broken down and explained that whatever he was today it was the Petitioner that made him. He was so contrite that he did not bother to apportion any blame to the wife. The judge knew by experience that there was no way the Petitioner did not fail somewhere and somehow in the relationship. The Respondent naturally did not want to cause more problems for himself so he let go of whatever inadequacies she had.

The Petitioner gave evidence of the Respondent’s maltreatment seven years unto their marriage till five years ago when he moved out of the house. All the time she gave her evidence the Respondent put his head down possibly too ashamed to meet the gaze of people in the courtroom.

And when it was time for cross-examination, the Respondent’s counsel said he had no questions for her. Technically it meant the only evidence on the record was the Petitioner’s and if the Respondents decide not to give evidence, then he had no choice but to grant the divorce.