The former US soldier began to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder during the period he spent fighting in Afghanistan since 1999. Photo: Reuters

A Maltese woman has had her marriage to an American annulled after a court heard he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder following an eight-year deployment in Afghanistan.

This affected his life so much that he started drinking to suppress his feelings, leaving his wife completely ignorant of his state of mind.

This was enough for Madam Justice Abigail Lofaro to rule that the marriage was null and void as consent was vitiated by a serious defect of judgement on matrimonial life, as well as its duties.

According to the court, it had to also be nullified because the former soldier’s serious psychological anomaly made it impossible for him to fulfil the essential obligations of marriage.

The court heard that the woman, who was a single mother to a son, met the man on an online dating site.

They communicated over the internet until February 2007 when he decided to move to Malta. He proposed after five months of cohabitation and they tied the knot that November.

However, the woman told the court problems began to surface from the very first day of marriage when, instead of going to bed with her, he spent all night drinking with his parents.

She then realised he was dependent on alcohol, to the extent he would refuse to attend social events unless he was assured that there was free booze.

“Any excuse was a good enough excuse for him to drink,” the woman told the court as she explained she “hated” going home with her son to a drunken husband who was unable to control himself and was often violent.

The court heard that although criminal proceedings had been instituted against him for violent behaviour at home, no case led to a conviction because the woman would forgive him.

The man told the court he had an alcohol problem and also admitted he did not tell his wife about his time in Afghanistan.

He told her he was a soldier but did not say where he was stationed because he was bound by the US’s Official Secrecy Act.

He told the presiding judge he began to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder during the period he spent in Afghanistan since 1999.

He said he turned to alcohol for comfort and was unable to communicate his feelings to his wife.

Had the parties had a normal courtship that lasted at least a year, [he] would have shown his true colours

The woman’s parents testified that although they had known their son-in-law since before the wedding, his “true colours” began to emerge afterwards and their daughter often called them in tears due to her husband’s abusive behaviour.

They claimed he had a drinking problem way before the marriage but “managed to hide it very well”.

The couple agreed to attend counselling but only made it to two sessions.

However, the psychologist told the court that the man had “a past history of alcohol dependence and depressive disorder but was never treated with anti-depressants”.

Madam Justice Lofaro said the court could not annul the marriage on the basis of fraud as the woman did not prove that her husband fraudulently kept his alcohol problem hidden.

However, the court was convinced he did not have the necessary discretion to really understand what marriage was about at the time of consent.

“The parties simply had no chance of ever contracting a legal marriage, first and foremost because they rushed into the marriage and did not allow any time to really get to know each other and secondly because [he] was not ready to come to terms with reality and with his past,” Madam Justice Lofaro said.

She continued: “This court cannot help but note that had the parties had a normal courtship that lasted at least a year, [he] would have shown his true colours and his character would have definitely been known.”

mxuereb@timesofmalta.com