JOIN USSometimes your spouse opposes your spiritual path. Let us analyse this compassionately:
* Maybe your spouse is very attached to you and wants all your attention, and when your attention is elsewhere, they don’t like it.
So, if you praise anything, they get upset. They take a stand to cut you from that so that you give all your attention back to them. So, don’t go on praising something beyond a limit.
* It might be out of insecurity. Sometimes, if you like something a lot, your spouse starts thinking you might leave the house and go away. This insecurity bugs your spouse, and so they oppose the path.
* It could even be an ego issue. Your spouse does not like being told what they should be doing. They may take it from their friend, but they would not like to take it when it comes from you. So, it could be a power game; to show one-upmanship they refuse.
* Money could be the fourth reason. When the mind wants something, then money is not a problem; one would spend double the money. So it appears to be time and money but is just the mind.
* Could be jealousy of the spouse’s happiness. This is strange but true. Generally, a spouse does everything to make the other happy. Yet if one of them is happy, it makes the other uncomfortable, because if someone is happy you cannot control them.
Whom can you control? One who is unhappy. It is a subtle psychological thing. When someone is happy they are also free inside. This is what some people cannot digest. They think freedom means the other is moving away from them and not involving them. They feel they are losing control.
* The spouse feels low self-esteem and that is why they want to control the other. So what you need to do is, in very measured way, tell your spouse when they are in a good mood, 'You know, I want a gift from you. I want you also to come with me and do a course. Let us both do it together?'
In ancient Vedic times, it was advised that both partners come for any spiritual practice. Otherwise it would cause an imbalance. If one is fulfilled and the other is not, there will be conflict in marital life.
When both husband and wife come on the spiritual path, they both grow together. Marriage is give and take, or compromise. You cannot say, 'I want it this way only'. You have to compromise somewhere in between.
If both husband and wife direct their energy into something useful or bigger, they will not police or blame each other. They won’t go on picking on each other’s mistakes. When two lines run parallel with a goal in front, they are together all through like the railway tracks. But if they are just focused on each other, then they cross at some intersection.