14 years no sex no grounds for annulment

By Rob Hyde

A husband in Austria has been told he cannot have his marriage annulled just because he has had no sex for 14 years. 

Austria’s supreme court (OGH) told the man that just because his wife is not able to sleep with him, and therefore also not able to bear him children, this does not constitute official grounds for an annulment.

The wife has been prevented from any form of intimate physical contact with anyone, including having sex with her husband because of mental health issues which are supposed to be linked her strict catholic upbringing.

The couple had hope to be able to overcome this together throughout the course of their marriage, but the wife had continued to suffer from a fear of losing control.

The OGH says that as the wife’s psychological problems had been known to the man before the couple were married, he cannot now claim that his marriage should now be declared void.

He added that the desire to have children is “not a compulsory element of marriage.”

He said: “The inability of the defendant to have sexual intercourse, which was already known at the beginning of the marriage, is not legal basis for an annulment.”