My husband didn’t tell me that he is an HIV positive when we married. What can do to get out of our marriage?

Full question:

My husband is an HIV positive. He never told me about this when we got married, it was only last month that I saw his medical documents and figured out that he is an HIV positive. What can I do to get out of this marriage? We live in West Virginia.

• Category: Divorce
• Subcategory: Annulment
• Date: 04/07/2025
• State: West Virginia

Answer:

Your marriage is a voidable marriage. In West Virginia, a marriage is considered voidable when at the time of marriage either party to the marriage was suffering from a sexually transmitted disease. You may seek a court’s order and get your marriage declared void.
W. Va. Code § 48-3-103 reads:
“ Voidable marriages.

The following marriages are voidable and are void from the time they are so declared by a judgment order of nullity:

     (1) Marriages that are prohibited by law on account of either of the parties having a wife or husband of a prior marriage, when the prior marriage has not been terminated by divorce, annulment or death;

     (2) Marriages that are prohibited by law on account of consanguinity or affinity between the parties;

     (3) Marriages solemnized when either of the parties:

         (A) Was mentally incompetent;

         (B) Was afflicted with a sexually transmitted disease;

         (C) Was incapable, because of natural or incurable impotency of the body, of entering into the marriage state;

         (D) Was under the age of consent; or

         (E) Had been, prior to the marriage and without the knowledge of the other party, convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment in excess of one year under the applicable law of this state, another state or the United States;

     (4) Marriages solemnized when, at the time of the marriage, the wife, without the knowledge of the husband, was with child by some person other than the husband.”