By Amanda Yong

THEY had been married for nearly three decades.

And at the ripe old age of 96, Mr Pang Tee Gam, a former businessman, wanted out. He claimed his marriage to his third wife had broken down due to her unreasonable behaviour.

But Madam Chui Ah Mui, 73, said he wanted a divorce in order to get his share of their matrimonial assets, mainly the three-room flat under her name.

Following a four-day hearing, District Judge Jocelyn Ong dismissed Mr Pang's divorce suit on the grounds that the marriage was not valid. This was because Mr Pang was still married to his first wife and had committed bigamy when he married Madam Chui.

The verdict was bittersweet for Madam Chui, a placid-looking woman who now lives in an old folks' home.

While she may have won the court battle, she felt that she has lost in love and marriage.

The retired clerk felt there was never any genuine love in their nearly 27 years of marriage.

'He never showed me any love or tenderness in all our years of marriage,' she said in a mixture of Mandarin and English. 'Even when I was sick, he never took care of me. I was the one taking care of him.'

They first met in 1982. He was 70 and she, 47. They were matchmade by mutual friends, had a whirlwind courtship, and were married within four months.

Their wedding dinner - with only family and close friends - was held at a restaurant in Outram Park.

'I knew the wife of one of his friends. She told me about him and asked if I wanted to meet him and I agreed,' she recounted.

To the then-single working woman, what she knew of her suitor sounded promising. He told her he was a widower with six children. His wife had died in 1981.

What Madam Chui did not know was that he was referring to his second wife. She claimed she had no idea that Mr Pang was still married to his first wife in Hainan, China.

She found out about this two years into their marriage after one of his regular visits to his first wife and children in China. It was a shock to her.

He was mostly an uncommunicative man with an explosive temper, she claimed.

For the first nine years of their marriage, her mother kept Mr Pang in check, Madam Chui said. Her mother, the family matriarch who owned two coffee shops, died in 1991. The inheritance was distributed among the eight children, including Madam Chui, the youngest.

That was when Mr Pang's true character was revealed, she claimed.

Dispute over flat-ownership

In court papers obtained by The New Paper, Madam Chui claimed that he started pressuring her to register his name as the co-owner of the flat they lived in. But she refused.

Instead, she put his name as a co-occupier. He then asked her to sell the flat and give the proceeds to him and his children.

He even drafted a will for her in which all her assets would be given to him and his children upon her death.

He claimed that he wanted the money so that he could return to China for good.

But she stood her ground and did not agree to any of his requests.

He persisted, and the 'constant harassment' caused her to seek treatment for depression, she claimed.

She also obtained a personal protection order against him in December 2007.

To add to her marital woes, she was struck by cancer in 2006. She had five major operations for cancer as well as a leg injury.

She claimed that even while she was hospitalised, Mr Pang continued to press her to accede to his demands.

When she still refused to budge, Mr Pang filed for divorce in December 2007.

Last Friday, his suit was dismissed.

Among the pieces of evidence the judge found particularly persuasive was Mr Pang's admission - under cross-examination by Madam Chui's lawyer, Mr Hee Theng Fong - that he had applied for a divorce from his first wife but did not get it because his first wife was pregnant at the time.

Mr Pang was ordered to pay Madam Chui $20,000 in costs for the suit.

Her new life in a home

For Madam Chui, the court ruling was a relief.

'I'm happy with the verdict,' she said.

Referring to her new life at the old folks' home, she said: 'I can finally enjoy peace and quiet here, with no one to disturb or shout at me.'

She moved into the home in November 2006 after she was discharged from hospital.

Since then, there has been little contact between the couple apart from the court hearings, she said.

Asked if she forgave him, Madam Chui said: 'No, I can't forgive him. I want him to go back to China. I never want to see him again.'

But from Mr Pang's perspective, married life with Madam Chui was far from troubled.

His account of events, which he had earlier related to Shin Min Daily News, contrasted sharply with hers.

Despite his admission in court that he failed to obtain a divorce from his first wife, he claimed in the interview that he divorced his first wife in China in 1951.

He added: 'Before we got married, I told her about my marriage and divorce from my wife in China. I never deceived her.'

Their marriage, he said, was relatively problem-free even after her mother died.

The divorce was Madam Chui's suggestion, he claimed, and it arose from a misunderstanding. He said his legs were weak, and he wanted to sell the flat so they could get another flat with a lift serving their floor.

'But she misunderstood and thought that I wanted to give the proceeds to my son,' he said.

When he objected to her suggestion of divorce, she offered him $10,000 'to chase him away'.

That was when he sought an equal share of the flat as part of division of matrimonial assets, he claimed.

This article was first published in The New Paper.

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