Dealing with a dormant partner

RELATIONSHIP&DATING 

Everybody who gets married would like to have a blissful marriage. However, some marriages are far from blissful because either the man or the woman is dormant.

A dormant spouse is one who is not aggressive in making a difference in his or her life through getting various jobs to make ends meet. Such a partner will also not endeavour to make friends who can help him/her get opportunities to reach greater heights of employment or business deals.

Josephine Kasaato, the president of Mothers' Union Namirembe Diocese, says that having a dormant partner is quite challenging because in this day and age, both partners have to work in order to bring about development in the family.

"If one partner is dormant when it comes to wealth creation or accumulation that will develop the family, this may bring about domestic violence in a home. This destroys the family in the end," she says.

She adds that however, the dormant partner should look back and see how he or she used to behave at the beginning of their relationship.

Kasaato says that the man or the woman might have been that person who was so vigilant in looking for money, but due to health or other problems, the partner may have been affected and fail to perform as well as before.

"If this partner was dormant at the beginning of your relationship, you should pray for them so that they can change their dormant behaviour. Talk to them by showing them that what they are doing is not normal and advise them to get friends who have developmental ideas.

And lastly, if one of the partners has money let them start a small business for their counterparts and observe if it is growing or if it is not, later find a solution for it, says Kasaato, adding that running away from your  dormant partner is not the solution, but bearing  with them is a good example.

She is of the view that if the dormant partner is a woman, it's a big problem because the children will look at her behaviour and copy it.

In the case of a dormant wife, Kasaato says her husband must be very vigilant in talking to her so that she can change. In this way, he would be supportive and sharing her burdens as a way of fulfilling the law of Christ in Galatians 6:2.

She is also of the view that partners should cover each one's bad behaviour in public because if the beans of the relationship are split, it's shaming to both parties.                 

Ali Male, a counsellor at A to Z Professional Counselling and Support Centre at Grand Imperial Hotel, says that a dormant partner is most probably that way because of the way the relationship began.

"You can find a situation where the woman started contributing to the family right from the beginning, which encouraged the man to lose the interest to care about the family. This in the long run oppresses the woman and she starts wondering whether she is the head of the family,'' Male says.

He says that in this situation, a couple ought to seek help from a professional counsellor to understand their positions and roles in a home in order for it to achieve development.                                                    

The Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Dr. Steven Samuel Kazimba Mugalu , says that when a couple that includes a dormant partner goes to him for counselling, he first listens to what both of them say. And through their statements, he learns the beginning of the problem.

"Some couples might have started when they both financially sound, but as time went on the man or the woman got a lot of money and started behaving differently. If it is the man, who gets more money, he can decide to refuse his wife to work so that she stays home. This brews quarrels between the two," Kazimba says. 

He says that in other cases, the woman can decide to stop going out to work and decides to work from home by starting a business like rearing chicken or running a retail or wholesale shop.

Kazimba says that this would now give the woman time to run her home and look after her children properly, where the services of a maid are discontinued because they also have their complexities.

Kaziimba says after looking at all these factors and he finds that one partner is just dormant, he asks them to read Genesis 3:19, which says that by the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground.

The verse will hopefully encourage the dormant partner to step up and act accordingly.

Kazimba says that however there are some men who go on TV and say they want to get married to a woman who has a job, with a car and a house to look after them.

"I don't advise any woman to get into a relationship with such a man because this is not a man in the real sense. From day one, this man has shown you that you are going to act as the man in the house. Then why do you risk getting married to him?"  Kazimba adds.