Dear Nabilah,
I love my wife very much, she has all the qualities I like in a woman. She’s very kind, compassionate and religious. My only problem with her is that, she hardly stays at home. She’s always going out, always inventing some vague reasons for her to be able to go out, saying this cousin has delivered a baby, this uncle is hospitalized, wedding or naming ceremony, etc. I have caught her lying several times in this regard. We have sat together with elders so many times for arbitration, she always promised to amend her ways, but she never did, always almost immediately she goes back to her old habits to the extent that I don’t trust her anymore. I insist on taking her and picking her up anywhere she needs to go, but she always finds a way to visit other houses asides where she was supposed to go. I’m at the end of my tether and have decided I would rather divorce her and find another then keep suffering this anguish. I deeply crave for a traditional marriage where the wife is always at home maintaining the house and caring for the children. Unfortunately, my wife is no such lady, rarely will I come back from work and find her at home, she’s either at the neighbour’s or visiting a certain relative without my permission. Kindly advise me on ways I can save my marriage.
-Traditional Husband
Dear Husband,
My first advice is to calm down and slow down your mind regarding this issue, so you will be able to analyze it objectively in order to find the right solution. The problem is that staying at home is very important to you, which unfortunately, is very difficult for your wife to adhere to. So the first step to finding a lasting solution is to try and find answers to the following questions:
Is your desire for your wife to always be at home more important to you than the importance of keeping your marriage alive?
Is your wife deliberately going out in order to spite you and does she enjoy seeing your anger and dissatisfaction whenever you catch her going out without your permission?
Do you see your wife making any effort in order to curb her outing spree, do you think that she wants to obey your orders but can’t?
Because, if you think your desire for your wife to always be at home is more important than keeping your marriage alive, that may be the reason you already thinking of a divorce, because you only married her so that she stays at home, and if she can’t fulfill your heart desires you are ready to let her go. Your wants and desires are more important to you than being with your wife or having a successful marriage. This is a wrong mindset for marital success, marriage shouldn’t be founded on self desires only, but on love and compassion mixed with for a better and for worse mindset.
On the other hand, if your wife is going out deliberately in order to spite you, and doesn’t care about your anger and dissatisfaction towards her, if she isn’t making any efforts to mend her ways, then it means she doesn’t consider you important enough. She doesn’t care about keeping the marriage alive, she only cares about herself desires which is another wrong mindset for marital success.
But if she really wants to obey you, but keeps finding it difficult, if she keeps making efforts to change, but keeps falling back to the same old habits, then know that this is something that has to do with her personality and mental state and perhaps she needs help in order to maintain a permanent change to this habit.
Some of the things that cause this inability to stay at home is extreme loneliness, some wives grow up in and extended family settings, always interacting with relatives and neighbours at all times, after marriage, they are taken to a house with different settings, most likely in a quieter neighbourhood in the outskirts of town, far away from all she used to know, such things evoke deep loneliness and homesickness that can drive some wives into this extreme behaviours.
Another reason is that some people crave constant socializing, they need to be around people, chatting, gossiping and exchanging pleasantries all the time or else they find themselves engulfed in sadness.
Another thing that might be causing this behavior is idleness, when the mind has nothing to engage or look forward to, it might lead a person to engage in such frivolous activities in order to keep their mind busy and engaged.
Lack of intimacy between couples can also push a wife into such habits in order to fill up her intimate needs by constantly socializing with friends and relatives.
Try to find out the main reason your wife keeps engaging in these habits despite its threat to your marriage. Support and help her so she will be able to stop this behaviour. You can find the right hobbies for her and help her to become attached to it, such as home based business, enroll her to further her education, get her employed, etc. Also increase your time with her and do some activities together as a couples such as cooking, going out for dinner, picnic, visiting relatives, sports, etc so she won’t feel lonely and it will also help increase the intimacy level in your marriage.
