Two spouses can complain about completely different behavior and still be guilty of like conduct, so long as both amount to mental cruelty.
The Case
Teague v. Teague, 198 Ga. 239 (1944), is the decision on the point. The husband’s ground was cruel treatment. He showed that his wife had accused him of unfaithfulness, nagged him against his protest when he was trying to sleep at night, made “rude and defamatory references to his parents,” and repeatedly told him that she did not love him, all of which seriously impaired his health.
His wife’s answer described something else entirely. She testified that he “had devoted undue and improper attentions to another woman, and often stayed out unnecessarily until late and unreasonable hours of the night and neglected her.”
The Holding
Nothing about those two lists matches. The Georgia Supreme Court held they were like conduct anyway, because of what each was doing to the other spouse: the wife’s testimony “charges like conduct as contemplated in the Code . . . the mutual acts tending to hurt and wound the feelings.”
Accordingly, the trial court “did not err in instructing the jury as to the provisions of that section” – the section being what is now OCGA 19-5-4(a)(3), which bars a divorce where “[b]oth parties are guilty of like conduct.”
Why This Catches People Out
The test Teague applies is not whether the two spouses did similar things. It is whether each was inflicting the same kind of injury on the other. In an unhappy marriage that is often true of both sides.
So a spouse who answers a mental cruelty petition by describing the neglect and coldness that came before it may be handing the court a reason to refuse the divorce to both of them.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!