Some women are so attached to making money that it takes an emotional toll on their stay-at-home spiritual husbands. It can be very draining to live with a materialistic woman whose only concern is making money, always putting food and shelter before everything else.
Oftentimes breadwinner wives haven’t reached an evolved state where their minds are capable of absorbing spiritual principles like detachment and the illusory nature of reality. Though their spiritual out-of-work husbands may try to compassionately explain it to them, it doesn’t sink in because the pursuit of money has taken up so much real estate in their brain.
This dynamic can cause a lot of damage in a relationship, particularly when a stressed-out breadwinner wife expresses resentment for being the only source of income in the household, thereby creating more negative karma for herself.
What resources are left for these poor husbands who just want to almost meditate and read books about spirituality? Here are a few suggestions to help a breadwinner wife who has an unhealthy relationship with money:
1. Slowly explain that money isn’t ultimately a “thing” – Money, like all matter, is ultimately empty. Chasing after it like a cat chases a squirrel in a park is just space chasing after space. If you use this analogy and she still gets defensive, citing bills and clothes for the kids, she’s either not listening or doesn’t understand science.
2. Show her pictures of tiny homes to prove you don’t need to make so much money – There are a lot of great-looking tiny houses out there, and they don’t cost that much money. Try to convince her – using compassion and easy-to-understand logic – that you can greatly reduce living costs by moving to a tiny house in the woods where you, she, and the kids can co-exist within 400 square feet.
3. Tell her you don’t want her to suffer anymore – Compassionately illustrate that her lust for money stems from lifetimes of karmic delusion, and here she is creating more negative karma for lifetimes to come. Carefully explain that her unhealthy attachment to money is blocking her enlightenment and, more importantly, yours.
4. Tell her she’s adding to your stress – The last thing you need is more stress. Here you are trying to remain in a meditative, open state and in walks a flurry of stress, money issues, concerns about the future, and worst of all: asking you what you did today. What you did, you can say, was try to untangle yourself from this web of delusion she’s enveloped you in.
5. Explain that this obsession makes her look shallow and ugly – You didn’t marry a shallow and ugly woman, “So why then are you becoming so shallow and ugly now?” you can ask her rhetorically without waiting for an answer. “This isn’t the real you,” is a great follow up statement.
It’s important to remember that this isn’t an overnight fix. Demanding too much too soon might cause her to suggest that you move out, which would leave you with nothing. While that may have been good enough for the Buddha, most spiritual practitioners have financial benefactors.
Plus, you made a commitment to help all sentient beings, of which she is one. See her as your teacher: her attachment is showing you how not to be, and that knowledge is priceless.
