What to do if my wife or husband is not interested in Krsna Consciousness?

Sometimes one may have a wife or husband who is not interested in Krsna Consciousness, or may be even negative or hostile to one's practice. What to do in these situations?

Jul 25, 2025

Much is spoken about the idea of dovetailing family life with Krsna Consciousness. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thākura mentioned that for most people in the current age, that's the most recommended position. Certainly, it's much easier to practice Krsna Consciousness in family life than to practice all the rules and regulations of renounced life.

Family life offers us a foundation for our spiritual practice, where we have space to develop our material activities and fulfill our desires and ambitions to a certain extent, but at the same time continue to progress in spiritual life. A devotee in family life who has pressing material desires may, in most cases, just satisfy them with the spouse without very serious consequences, while a Sannyāsī will be in a much more dangerous position. As Prabhupada describes in the pastime of Diti and Kardama Muni, the spouse acts as a general who protects us from being overwhelmed by illicit desires. A devotee in family life is partially protected, while a renunciant can count only on his sheer determination to resist.

Family life, however, is not a solution in itself. It demands a continuous effort in the direction of cultivating transcendental knowledge and developing our Krsna Consciousness. When this effort is abandoned, we can very easily fall into the trap of pious materialistic life devoid of Krsna Consciousness, or directly into plain sinful life.

Prabhupada explains these different concepts in his purports on the allegory of King Purañjana. Take a look, for example, at his purport to SB 4.27.1:

"By coming home, taking his bath, eating nice foodstuffs, getting refreshed and searching out his wife, King Purañjana came to his good consciousness in his family life. In other words, a systematic family life as enjoined in the Vedas is better than an irresponsible sinful life. If a husband and wife combine together in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and live together peacefully, that is very nice. However, if a husband becomes too much attracted by his wife and forgets his duty in life, the implications of materialistic life will again resume."

He then continues:

"Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has therefore recommended, anāsaktasya viṣayān (Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.2.255). Without being attached by sex, the husband and wife may live together for the advancement of spiritual life. The husband should engage in devotional service, and the wife should be faithful and religious according to the Vedic injunctions. Such a combination is very good. However, if the husband becomes too much attracted to the wife due to sex, the position becomes very dangerous."

He thus makes the point that in family life, it is the duty of the husband to satisfy the material needs of the wife for clothes, ornaments, children, attention, etc., but at the same time engage her in Krsna Consciousness. Similarly, as described in other purports, the wife should make sure that the husband has his needs for respect, affinity, intimacy, support, etc. satisfied, so he may remain peaceful and fulfill his different duties and his practice of Krsna Consciousness.

When these basic necessities are satisfied, family life can be peaceful, and both can have a stable foundation to pursue their spiritual practice, balancing it with material and spiritual duties. However, as Prabhupada puts it, "if the man becomes attracted to the woman simply for sex enjoyment, then family life becomes abominable". Similarly, if the woman sees the man as just a means of satisfying her material ambitions, the same result ensues.

As we can see, family life is a balancing act, where on the one hand one has to take care of material needs and provide for one's family, but on the other hand should not lose track of the goal of life.

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Family life can be understood as a stepping stone, or as a ladder to get out of a sinful, promiscuous life devoid of responsibility, and keep oneself on a platform of piety. However, as the story of Purañjana in the Srimad Bhagavatam teaches us, a mere life of material piety devoid of Krsna Consciousness is not sufficient. To go somewhere, we need to avoid being caught in the illusion of materialistic life. For a man, the trap is to become too attracted to sexual life, or, on the other extreme, to neglect his family duties, and for a woman the trap is to become too attracted to material processions, social status and other aspects of materialistic life, and use her husband to obtain these things instead of assisting him in the development of his Krsna Consciousness. A good wife is called dharma-patnī, because she assists the husband in his spiritual practice, creating an auspicious situation where both can advance.

If both are successful, their family life can become like Vaikuṇṭha. Otherwise, if a man becomes too attracted to sexual life, becoming absorbed in simply satisfying the whims of a materialistic wife, or if a woman becomes too much involved in her own material ambitions and forgets the goal of life, family life can easily be converted into a prison where we simply waste our precious human life without achieving neither material happiness we hoped for, nor the spiritual advancement we could have made otherwise.

As Prabhupada concludes:

"The conclusion is that a household life is better than a sinful life devoid of responsibility, but if in the household life the husband becomes subordinate to the wife, involvement in materialistic life again becomes prominent. In this way a man’s material bondage becomes enhanced. Because of this, according to the Vedic system, after a certain age a man is recommended to abandon his family life for the stages of vānaprastha and sannyāsa."

We come then to the main point of this post: What to do if the spouse is not interested in practicing Krsna Consciousness, or worse, what to do if he or she is hostile to our practice?

That's undoubtedly a very serious problem. That’s why we should always be attentive to compatibility before considering marriage. Often, just astrology is checked, but this is a mistake. First, because there are very few qualified astrologers around, and second, because mere astrological compatibility is just the tip of the iceberg. Even when we consider two serious devotees, it’s important to check if they have similar views and expectancies on spiritual life, similar goals, etc. If they are not able to walk in the same direction, marriage will be a struggle, and it becomes much worse when one person is inclined to the practice of Krsna Consciousness and the other is not.

Unfortunatelly, it’s not always possible to check everything, and even if two persons are on the same note at a certain point, there is no guarantee they will remain so for their whole lives. People change, which brings us back to the previous point: What to do when this happens?

We enter into family life because we have a need for companionship and other things. If we had a tendency to be renunciants, we would not have to enter into family life in the first place. Therefore, maintaining a relationship is important, not just because of duty and other factors, but also because we need it. The more we are committed to the relationship, the more effort we should put in order to try to save it. If one is just associating, without a serious commitment yet, one may decide to just give it up if serious divergences appear, but if one is already married for some time, and especially if there are children, one has to consider the situation much more carefully.

That's when the point about a spouse who is negative or hostile to our practice comes into light.

If one is just not interested, but doesn't mind that we practice, this can be reconciled. We may just practice on our own, and respect the choices of our wife or husband. However, this is a relatively rare situation. Usually, the spouse will try to bring us to their side. If they are interested in material life, they will try to attract us to the same side. If we show we are not attracted, he or she will probably not be happy and come to the point of becoming negative or hostile, and we may come to the point of having to choose to abandon or relax our spiritual practice to try to save the relationship, or keep our practice and risk losing it.

What to do in these situations? There is no fixed answer. In an ideal world, a husband is supposed to be a saint, and the wife is supposed to follow and assist him in his spiritual practice. However, very few men nowadays are saints, and very few women will be inclined to renounce their material ambitions and follow a saint anyway, so we always have to adjust and often choose the least dangerous of several bad options.

There is, however, something more important than maintaining a relationship, which is to keep our practice of Krsna Consciousness. One should do everything possible to try to save a marriage, but this shouldn't come at the expense of one's Krsna Consciousness. If all other alternatives are exhausted and it comes to the point where the choice is between maintaining our spiritual practice and maintaining a marriage, spiritual life should have precedence.

A general advice is to be tolerant and maintain our practice even if the spouse is not interested. We can wake up early to chant our rounds, read and do our sādhana, and try to be a dutiful spouse the rest of the time. If we are tolerant and not fanatical, there is a chance the spouse may also become inclined to practice over time.

If this doesn't work, and the spouse goes in the direction of becoming unfavorable or hostile, the next option is to just maintain our practice and continue to perform our material duties, and be detached, just leaving the situation in the hands of Krsna. We can't change another person; everyone has one's free will, in which even Krsna doesn't interfere. The only thing we can change is ourselves, and that's what we should try to work on, to just be dutiful and pray to Krsna for a solution, whatever it may be. There is a chance that our partner may change over time if we can just learn to be tolerant, and it may also happen that he or she may choose to leave us. We should just accept that we don't have control over it, and be prepared to just continue doing whatever it takes to continue practicing our Krsna Consciousness.

We may lose a spouse, an arm, a leg, or even our own life, but we should never lose our Krsna Consciousness.

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