By Zawadi Lompisha
Last Sunday we arrived in church 15 minutes ahead of time. As we sat in the pews waiting for the service to commence, I had the opportunity to survey the congregation as it filtered into church.
A husband and wife, in one instance, walked into church with their children in tow. On reaching the pew, they let the children in first, then the mother and the father followed.
In another instance, it was a couple walking in. Occasionally, a lone man or woman walked into the doorway. It is then that I noticed a ring on one of the lone woman’s finger that my mind began whirring and spurred my thoughts for this week.
How do couples handle different outlooks to life? What made me ask this question was realising that I always took it for granted that my husband and I would wake up on Sunday morning and attend church together.
Our general pursuits in life are alike and that we have many mutual activities.
Religious persuasions
The fact is, in many marriages, this is not the case. To go back to the scenario in church, there are couples that do not agree on their spiritual persuasions.
One of them will be ‘saved’ while the other does not subscribe to such expressions of faith. Consequently, one spouse will always find himself or herself attending church alone because the latter couldn’t be bothered about it.
As I flip through our national newspapers and read about individuals implicated in corrupt scandals, I always wonder if there is a husband or wife behind the scenes who cowers in the shame of his or her spouse’s corrupt activities.
What do you do when you do not agree with your spouse’s involvement in crime or land grabbing or embezzling from government coffers or indictment to being involved in the desolation of the Mau forest?
I shudder to imagine what a wife goes through when her husband insists on bringing pornographic movies home.
The wife may rate them as dirty and totally against her view to a good life, but he will not budge and will even want to take them to the bedroom as he believes they catalyse their sexual activity.
A few years back, a friend had a big fight with her husband because she thought abortion was okay. They had been watching a news item on abortion and the husband casually remarked that he would never advocate for it. She, however, expressed the view that if she did not feel ready to have a baby, she would always consider an abortion.
He expressed total shock and even asked her how sure he could be that she had never procured an abortion in the course of their marriage. Her reply led to a serious fall out.
Changing your spouse
Because we are all different, we will have different views to various things. However, each of us has basic fundamentals that we live by that can be in serious conflict with a spouse’s fundamentals and this could lead to conflict.
So, what do you do when you and your spouse seem to be operating from different platforms, but hoping to get to the same destination?
Most people try to change their spouse through cajoling, threats, hints, sulking, withdrawal, shouting, embarrassment, sending emissaries and all manner of tactics. That is where they go wrong. More often than not, a spouse under pressure or pushed to a corner, naturally fights back.
They dig in their heels and even if they know they are wrong and refuse to change just to prove a point.
The wife who tells the husband on Sunday morning as she leaves for church with the children that he will rot in hell for refusing to accompany them only hardens him further and has no hope of moving him.
The same goes for the husband who will threaten his wife with dire consequences if she continues to attend her church women’s group.
These two examples are textbook scenarios that most of us are familiar with.
You probably stand a better chance with your spouse if, instead of haranguing them to change, you seek to understand where they are coming from and why they do what they do.
When you seek to understand rather than condemn, you communicate to your spouse that you do care about them and would like to understand them and help where you can.
Major rift
Addictions, we all know, are hard to stop and your spouse might need you to stand by him as he fights to overcome pornography, rather than making an already bad situation even worse by continuously condemning him. Living out your religious beliefs might be an easier route to winning your husband over than concluding that he is doomed.
I will quickly add, though, that you must not accept a position from your spouse that is life threatening to both you and your family.
A criminal spouse must be reported to the authorities. Inasmuch as your husband’s ill gotten wealth might be affording the family a life of luxury, if it imperils others, as many of the terrible scandals in our country have done, you should not live with that. It can’t be worth it.
