Legal Definitions - Mental Cruelty

Definition: Mental cruelty is a term used in law to describe a pattern of abusive behavior towards a spouse that causes extreme emotional distress and makes it impossible to continue the marriage. This behavior can include insults, threats, and other forms of emotional abuse that are repeated over time and have a serious impact on the victim's mental and physical health.

• A husband who constantly belittles his wife, calls her names, and threatens her with violence.
• A wife who isolates her husband from his friends and family, controls his every move, and constantly accuses him of cheating.

These examples illustrate how mental cruelty can take many forms, but always involves a pattern of abusive behavior that causes serious harm to the victim's mental and physical health. In both cases, the victim would have to prove that the behavior was intentional, repeated, and had a serious impact on their well-being in order to seek a divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty.