Court rules against wife attempting to divorce husband

A woman’s court action to divorce her husband failed as it was shown she slept with her husband after he married his second wife, the Cassation Court ruled last week.

ABU DHABI // A woman has failed to divorce her husband because she slept with him after he wed his second wife, a court has ruled.
A?M, an Emirati, had set a condition in her nuptial contract with A?H, also an Emirati, in 2000 that if he married another woman, she had the right to divorce him.
He married again in 2007 A?M filed for divorce six years later.
She filed her divorce based on damages because she could not bear to live with him any more and requested the custody of her two daughters, R and T, and son S. She asked that her husband be required to provide a home, car, driver and maid, pay school fees for S, and pay her an allowance.
The First Instance Court granted her divorce, custody of the three children, her Dh20,000 post-divorce dowry, Dh9,000 as her allowance and monthly custody payment of Dh1,500.
The court also ordered him to pay Dh2,000 monthly for each child and provide her with a house with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen.
He also had to provide a car and its driver at a cost of Dh1,500 a month and Dh8,000 to bring him into the country.
The husband appealed against the verdict and the Appeals Court cancelled the divorce granted by the lower court.
She appealed against that verdict to the Court of Cassation, arguing that the divorce order should not have been cancelled.
She claimed that her husband breached the marriage contract's conditions when he married another woman in April 2007 and therefore had the right to divorce, but the court said the marriage continued for six years after he was remarried and she admitted to the court that the last time she slept with her husband was in July 2013.
She filed for divorce on November 26, 2013.
The court said that if the wife willingly slept with her husband after the alleged damage or breach, her right to divorce failed and the Court of Appeals' verdict to cancel the divorce order was therefore upheld.
[e-mail]