My wife gets angry. Sometimes I fight back else I run away. How do I develop strength to face her and calm her down?
Sometime back, when I spoke about women empowerment initiatives in society, there are some associations for battered and distressed husbands also who approached me. They wrote a letter to me saying, “Gurudev, you seem to only talk about disadvantaged and distressed women in society. Please give some thought about the poor distressed husbands in society also. We have formed an association of such husbands to address issues”.
I think some of these associations are there in Mumbai and Delhi. Usually these associations are present in bigger cities. There are very less chances of them being in villages and rural areas. I think maybe you should join one of those associations and become a member (Laughter).
Nowadays even young men are wary and cautious about marriage. They think, “Who knows what kind of wife I will have. She could either be like Goddess Lakshmi or even turn out to be wicked like Surpanakha! (a demoness in Ramayana and sister of the evil king Ravana)”. Some people met me in the past and said, “Gurudev, it has only been a few months for our marriage, and now my wife has gone and filed a court case citing demands for dowry or torture, etc.”
The lady had dragged the boy’s parents too to court along with the boy and had them all arrested and put behind bars.
If you go to the jails in Delhi, you will be shocked to see so many elderly ladies behind bars. Some of them are 70 or 80 years old. During one of my visits there I met an old lady and asked her, “Mother, what happened? What did you do that brought you to this jail?” She told me, “Gurudev, what do I say? My own daughter-in-law filed a lawsuit and had me arrested here. I did not do anything to her”. There are many cases where a newlywed daughter-in-law has her in-laws sent off to Lord Krishna’s birth place (here meaning the prison). That is why many young men are distraught and worried seeing such incidents.