KC Vohrah J:

The petitioner and the respondent, both Catholics, were married at St. Annes Church, Bukit Mertajam in 1959. They have two children from the marriage, a daughter now aged 28 years and a son 25 years.

By a petition filed on 11 March 1986 the petitioner seeks dissolution of the marriage. He says the marriage has broken down irretrievably grounding his petition for divorce under s. 53(1) of the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 (the Act) and relying on s. 54(1)(b) thereof that his wife has behaved in such a way that he cannot reasonably be expected to live with her. The wife has denied that the marriage has broken down irretrievably. She says there is still life in the marriage and efforts at reconciliation have not been exhausted.

The son of both the parties summed up the sad situation in the matrimonial home before the date of the divorce petition. "It was not a happy house". That, it would appear, was the situation for several years before the filing of the petition, and the evidence does show it was not a happy home. It was a home besetted with bitterness, strife, suspicion and tension generated by frequent violent quarrels between the petitioner and the respondent, long periods of silence between the respondent and the rest of the family, virtually daily absences of several hours of the respondent from the home when she resided at the matrimonial home, long periods of absence of the respondent from the home on other occasions and by certain specific incidents involving the respondent.

There is dispute as to the point of time when the problems affecting the matrimonial home started but to my mind, having regard to all the evidence adduced in this case, some persistent problems manifested in the home in the late seventies, and over the years more aggravating problems piled up and these problems gravely affected the marriage. It is clear that the petitioner is relying on the cumulative effect of all these problems to show that the marriage has irretrievably broken down.

The petitioner, now 59 years old, is a government pensioner. The respondent, 47 years of age, for most part of her married life a housewife, is now a temporary sales assistant. After their marriage in 1959 they lived variously at Tapah, Sungei Siput, Kulim, Taiping, then Tapah again and eventually at Kulim again where the petitioner now resides.

The two children to the marriage, though they now live with the petitioner, were away from the matrimonial home when they entered university. The daughter was away from the house from 1981 to 1984 but she used to go home during weekends and when the university was on vacation. The son was in university from 1983 to 1987 and used to go back during vacation too. As school going children they noticed many of the incidents complained of by the petitioner and when they were home on leave from university they witnessed the further deterioration of the marriage.

According to the petitioner there were frequent violent quarrels between himself and the respondent, and that while there was no physical violence there were threats of physical violence from her. He said that on one occasion she abused him for giving a lift to a lady colleague of his and accused him of keeping her. He said he had denied it but she insisted on going to the woman's house and questioning her. The respondent and he together with their son went to that lady's house and "there was a big scene on the public road as the house was by the side of the road" and when they returned home"she created a very big scene and had I not kept quiet matters would have got worse." According to the petitioner, on another occasion, in Taiping, she left the home for over 70 days and one afternoon she returned to the matrimonial home demanding to take her clothes. He said that as a Catholic Priest "was handling the situation then I advised her to contact the priest". He said that "she then created a big scene and threatened force so much so I had to push