According to Osho, when a partner clings to a rigid 'purity' ideal, argument and rescue attempts only drive them deeper into it. You cannot convert them—especially a husband converting a wife. Honor their freedom; let them learn by bitter experience. Non-interference prevents escalation, and the relationship may naturally loosen or end rather than becoming a torturous power struggle.
If your partner becomes strict about being “pure,” trying to fix them makes it worse—give space and let life teach them.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, my wife has become a brahma kumari of the raj yogis of prejapita brahma in mount abu. It is hard for me to accept her way, especially her ideal of purity and her believing in such things as the five thousand year cycle of mankind which will end in about 1987 in a big atomic war and natural catastrophes to start a new golden age. What can I do?
All the wars in the past -- and they have been many... In three thousand years we have fought five thousand wars. But they were partial wars. Even the First World War and the Second World War should not be called World Wars because the whole world was not really involved. A major part was involved but not the whole. The Third World War will be the first and the last World War, first and last both because it will be total destruction. Nobody can win it -- that is one of the greatest blessings -- that nobody can win it, neither Russia nor America. The difference between the victor and the defeated will be a difference of only ten minutes at the most because if America attacks Russia first then it will take ten minutes for Russia to attack America. Just ten minutes! Or vice versa. And we have…
These are the five worlds we live in, and my feeling is you are somewhere struggling with the first two. Never try to handle anybody! It is easy to, but then you destroy the very possibility of love arising. You can handle a woman -- then she is no more a woman; she becomes a machine to be used. You can have a wife but the woman dies. You can have a legal licence, can have power over the woman, but you will not enjoy it because the whole enjoyment of love consists in voluntary surrender to each other. If she has to, the beauty is lost; if you have to, the beauty is lost. But this is a perennial question. It has nothing to do with you especially -- everybody has to struggle with it; it is one of the most fundamental questions.
[A visitor says she doesn't want to take sannyas because to wear orange and mala will be difficult at home. Then asks about her boyfriend, who is more spiritual and ascetic than her, which causes difficulties.] A relationship can never be without difficulties and if there is love, then there are more difficulties. This may look strange but it is one of the most fundamental facts of life to be understood: if there is no love, a relationship can move very smoothly Hence many societies in the past have decided for marriage without love. When there is a marriage without love there is no expectation, you don't have great dreams about it. It is very mundane, it is down to earth. There is no romance involved in it, no poetry involved in it, no great hopes, no great dreams. It is simple -- an arrangement.
Osho, why can I take almost everything lightly except my husband, pravasi? Why do I fight him so? Why do I always try to change him?
It is a very ancient story. In the very beginning, something went wrong. You may know, you may not know: Eve was not the first woman. God first created Adam and Lilith. And the first night, the honeymoon night -- the first honeymoon -- and a quarrel started because there was only one bed. And in those days double beds were not available! This is the story of the beginning: there was just a single bed. So who should sleep on the bed and who should sleep on the floor? Of course, Adam was as much a male chauvinist pig as anybody! He was muscular, more powerful, so he possessed the bed. But Lilith was not willing. She said, "We are equal, we are made equal." She was the founder of the Lib Movement, the real founder! They fought so much. I don't know whether clothes were thrown at each…
There are many people who avoid love just to be on safe ground. There are people who don't want to get committed in any relationship because they know that once you are committed and you come close, fighting starts, resistance starts, and ugly things bubble up, so what is the point? At the most they are interested in sexual relationships, but not in intimacy. And unless a relationship is intimate and deep, you will never know what relationship is. Just a sexual relationship is a peripheral thing, and you will never be contented by it. These things are natural. One has to accept them and by and by transcend them. If you feel too much anger, move into your room, beat the pillow, cry, weep, scream, but do it alone. Why show your ugly face to the other? What is the point? Just cathart.