That materialistic streak is a marriage wrecker

GREG KELEBONYE
Staff Writer | Friday January 22, 2010 00:00

'Whatever happened? I loved this girl with everything I have. She was a storekeeper and I was a self-employed plumber. I saved some money and ensured she went back to school. She got her university degree last year and God knows what I have been going through since. All that respect and the smiles have vanished. Now she treats me like I were a two year-old, barking at me and daring me to hit or do something to her. About five times she has lied to the police that I threatened her in some way. I am sure very soon she will find a foolproof lie that will put me in jail forever.

Funny thing is I am not even sure what I must do. I can't leave. I love my kids and can't bear to see them live in a disjointed family. And I still love her. I invested my all - my love and everything that is me in this woman, and today even her family treat me like I were some monster, to the point her siblings come into my house and insult me in her presence and she allows it,' he says dejectedly.

John's case is only one of many similar cases of abused spouses. Cases that eventually go through the courts or result in something nasty - leading to total collapse of the marriage. In many cases the 'changed' spouse even becomes violent.

'My husband and I worked as teachers, and things were just fine. I don't know what happened when he became a Principal Education Officer. Somehow he sees a dog whenever he looks at me and gets freaked by things that we used to enjoy doing together such as me massaging his shoulders.

It's like I have developed thorns in my hands. We are constantly arguing over nothing and he always finds a reason to hit me,' *Pona Morekisi, tearfully narrated the metamorphosis in her marriage. But how can someone with whom you were so madly in love suddenly turn into such an animal?

'The simple answer is: Power Dynamics. If you look at families 50 years ago, there was commitment to home building. People entered marriage for the right reason. So committed were people that even if a spouse had a child outside the home or by another man, the partner would forgive and find ways of strengthening the home. Not so today. And the reason is that people have lost the objective of marriage. People have become opportunistic and materialistic in nature,' says Tatitown Court President and Family Welfare expert Ludo Mosojane. Nowadays, she says, people marry for convenience.

'I have handled cases of women who went up the ladder and would say to their spouse 'I am now a manager and you remain a taxi-driver. You were ok for me when I was a teacher but you need to know that I hold an important post and it is not right that I should have a taxi driver for a husband. Batho ba taa reng [what will people think],'
Mosojane said that a lot of people are pressured by societal expectations. The society, she says, expects people in a given station in life to live life in the way that society itself prescribes.

' When you hear a man say to his wife, 'ke bata mosadi wa matshelo (I want a business-minded woman) and you do not fit into my lifestyle anymore' you can be sure that person never really had a well defined goal for marriage as an individual. Similarly you will find a woman who boasts, 'This man married me driving a Toyota Hilux.

He is still driving the same vehicle after so many years. The guy I go out with drives German-made cars. I would probably die before I could drive a BMW and now I have the chance. A ke ka swela mo lehumeng hela ke re ke sweletse maikano a lenyalo - e le gore a a tura go le kae he maikano (should I die in poverty simply because I took marriage vows, how expensive they must be those vows!')

This, says Mosojane, happens because some people marry for the wrong reasons.

Conflicts of this nature happen among couples where one partner defines success in terms of the couple's material worth and social standing. When what prevails in the family does not fit that definition, you have chaos.

'But that is a wrong way of going about it. A materialistic spouse will never be satisfied with what you have as a family and you are likely to be fighting all the time,' she said.

Ghantsi Assistant District Commissioner Ketumile Ramotadima shares Mosojane's sentiments.

'Our society has become too materialistic. As marriage adjudicators, we come across many cases where one partner who has become successful one way or the other begins to treat the other partner with contempt. People forget that marriage is made out of love and a desire to build a home,' he said adding that too many families are breaking up because of the materialistic streak in one of the partners.

Both Mosojane and Ramotadima's analyses are supported by a recent study by Reuters news agency. The study found that people who put a lot of weight on luxury vacations or designer dcor couldn't build a home.

The study found that wives or husbands who place high value on possessions are more likely to experience financial problems, which in turn puts a strain on the relationship. So serious is the vice of materialism, according to the study, that very materialistic couples had a 40 percent higher risk of having financial problems than other couples. This almost always impacts marital happiness.

'For years there has been an emphasis on learning proper saving and budgeting techniques to avoid marital conflict over financial issues,' said the author of the study, Jason Carroll, of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.'But our study found that financial problems have as much to do with how we think about money as they do with how we spend money,' he added.

Carroll discovered materialistic spouses put more emphasis on what they have and it took fewer financial problems to cause rifts.

'For a highly materialistic spouse or couple, it takes less financial disturbance to trigger a financial problem,' he said.

'Some would say, 'I'm not living a good life and I don't have a good marriage if we can't afford to go on that vacation or purchase designer decor for our home,' where a less materialistic spouse would not view these limitations as a major issue.'

'... Materialism may increase financial problems in marriage in two ways: a spouse may use money unwisely in chasing unreasonable materialistic expectations, therefore causing actual money problems or materialistic expectations may cause a spouse to interpret a financial situation negatively, leading to more complaints and conflicts, even when another couple with similar financial resources won't have such conflicts because of lower expectations,' Carroll said.

A key to dealing with financial problems, the progenitor of conflict among materialistic couples is to have realistic expectations and to separate needs from wants.

By lowering expectations, spouses are less likely to buy unnecessary things and can avoid argument and stress in the marriage. It could also make people more appreciative of what they have.

'We need to rethink the idea that financial problems are always money problems,' said Carroll.'We need to start adjusting how much materialistic issues factor into our idea of what makes a good marriage and family life,' he added.

Carroll and his team gives four recommendations for solving the issue of finance:
Do not compare your financial status to that of people with higher financial power. Rather compare with those who earn less and you will develop a sense of gratitude; money cannot replace happy moments of simple life - trash materialistic attitudes; regard your current financial state with gratitude and optimism and avoid purchasing small and unnecessary things that bring debt and stress in your relationship.
* Not real name