UAE | Housing & Property
Lack of affordable flats puts strain on expatriate marriages in Dubai
Lack of cheap housing and living in shared apartments is triggering fights among newly-weds as the wives who come here do not expect to live in such cramped accommodation.
- By Sunita Menon, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:01 June 14, 2008
- Image Credit: Gulf News Archive
- Two couples and bachelors use a kitchen in the same flat in Dubai. Rising rents cause heartaches as newly-wed couples opt to stay in shared accommodation or even apart.
Dubai: Lack of cheap housing and living in shared apartments is triggering fights among newly-weds as the wives who come here do not expect to live in such cramped accommodation.
Expatriates from the sub-continent usually get married during their short breaks home, leave their wives behind in home countries, come back here and try to get a decent housing.
Men who grew up in joint families do not think sharing accommodation is such a big deal but the stress and heartaches begin when the new brides find they do not have any privacy in the shared apartments.
Abdul Kader, an Indian driver, had been on a frantic search to get a room in an apartment with a family, before he brings his new bride to join him in Dubai.
He obviously cannot afford a flat on his salary of Dh2,200 per month. The 29-year-old got married three months ago. His 19-year-old bride currently lives with his parents in Kerala, south India. His wife nags him to get her to the UAE every time he calls her on the weekend.
"I am not speaking to her now and did not phone her last weekend. She doesn't understand the trouble I am going through trying to get a room for us. She does not want to live with my parents. She has threatened to go back to her parents. I have warned her that she should not go back," he said.
Because there is hardly any cheap housing here, Kader has put off plans of getting his bride to Dubai.
"Families subletting a room in their flats are demanding about Dh800 per month. I can't afford it," he said in desperation.
Hussain, 25, and Zeba, 20, a Pakistani couple, are facing a similar situation. They have been married eight months and are currently living in Abu Dhabi and are sharing a room in a two-bedroom flat rented to them by a Indian couple.
Keeping peace
Hussain is in advertising and earns Dh15,000 per month. All his efforts of getting a decent one-bedroom flat in Abu Dhabi at an affordable price have failed.
"I stay late at work because I do not wish to go home as my wife will nag me to go and search for a flat. She does not understand that the rents are way beyond our budget. A flat in a decent building or residential area is no less than Dh80,000," said Hussain.
"But I am trying the best I can. I do not like taking credit cards, but I now have got two of them. It is essential now if we have to move into a place of our own. I don't want the daily fights because of rents," he said.
Things are not the same for Arun, a Sri Lankan, who works in the hospitality sector in Dubai. He has been married for almost a year and his wife has gone back to Colombo and will only return if he can afford to rent a studio or a one-bedroom flat.
"She left last month. Everything was fine with us. We went out every evening and loved socialising, but gradually we started having small arguments. She just did not want to live in a shared accommodation," he said.
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