Grubb v. Grubb

Henderson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from a decree granting a divorce a mensa et thoro to a wife, ordering the payment of $50 per week as permanent alimony, subject to further order of court, and $500 as counsel fee to the wife’s solicitor, and dismissing the husband’s cross-bill. The parties were married on May 27, 1950; the separation occurred on June 30,1951 and there were no children born as a result of the marriage. Both were about forty years old at the time of the marriage.

Dr. Grubb is a pediatrician and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Medical School. He lived in an apartment at 4 Upland Road with his mother, who was over sixty-five years of age, and his aunt. He met the appellee about five years before the marriage. She was employed as a secretary to Dr. ⁴⁵⁴ McLanahan, at a salary of $50 per week.

She was a not infrequent visitor at .the house, and went to movies, and on at least one vacation trip with Dr. Grubb and-his-,mother. After the death of the aunt, the parties, became engaged in December, 1949, and it was understood that his mother would live with them in the apartment. After the marriage in May and their return from a two-week’s honeymoon, disagreements arose between the wife and the husband’s mother concerning the management of the household, which the wife assumed, and the status of the wife in the household. Dr. Grubb had always lived with his mother and had to be careful of his health, due to the removal of a tubercular kidney.

He had few social contacts or interests outside of his profession. The wife’s entrance into the household apparently disturbed the pattern of their life. Unfortunately, the husband, if he did not take sides with the mother, certainly did not side with the wife in these altercations. For example, when an issue arose as to who should do the marketing, he simply left the market money on the table and went out.

Again, when the wife complained about the mother’s faultfinding, dominating ways, and coldness to her, he told her that she should be more tolerant, that these “were trivial problems in the main, that I knew my mother well, I knew she had a very forgiving spirit”. On several occasions the .mother refused to allow the wife to enter their bedroom, on the. ground that the husband was resting and should not be disturbed. When the wife complained of these and other incidents he stated that he thought these small matters could “be straightened out without my coming in to act as a referee”. He refused to adopt her suggestion that they have a joint conference with the mother, or with the minister who had married them.

This policy of neutrality did not succeed in relieving the tension, which’ according to the undisputed medical testimony began to seriously affect the wife’s health. In June, 1951, about a year after the marriage, the wife, with her husband’s consent, went to her mother’s ⁴⁵⁵ home for two weeks when the latter’s maid was on a vacation. She never returned. According to her testimony, she sought an interview with her husband, told him that she loved him, and begged him to establish a separate home for her apart from the mother.

He refused, and told her that he did not love her any more and did not want her to come back. He denied that he ever told her not to come back, but admitted that he never asked her to do so. When asked if he told his wife that he no longer loved her, he testified: “the conversation as I recall it involved a demand on my wife’s