Ask Our Spouses

By Dr jalarth Uche Opara

One day I sat close to a wife of a powerful man of God . While he was ministrying, with awe and admiration the congregation gazed at him, however his wife remained unmoved.

She would intermittently let out comments very uncomplimentary in muffled voices, with a facial expression showing disdainfulness. His life on the pulpit seems very opposed to his life at home.

Our spouses are not our blood brothers or sisters. We did not grow up together. We may come from different backgrounds, have different orientations, different temperaments and completely different upbringings. These are realities that cannot be wished away.
Yet, somehow, they have become an integral part of us virtually inseparable from our lives.

They are the people we see at the close of each day and the first people we encounter at the beginning of another. With them, there are supposed to be no secrets, no pretence and no hiding places.

Nakedness becomes a lifestyle not merely of the body, but of the soul. Ask our spouses about us. They are among the few people who know us in our most natural element, the unedited version of who we are. They see us when the cameras are off, when the applause has faded, when the visitors have gone and when there is no audience to impress.

What they know about us is often more revealing than what the world thinks it knows about us.
Many people who project suave personalities in public may be terrors and dragons at home.

Ask their spouses.
Many who command influence, visibility and respect, and carry an impressive aura of gentility, may become the exact opposite within the walls of their homes.

Ask their spouses.
The public sees our speeches. Our spouses see our moods The public sees our smiles. Our spouses see our frustrations. The public hears our wisdom. Our spouses hear our arguments.
The public sees our generosity. Our spouses know how we treat the person closest to us.

The public celebrates our character. Our spouses live with it.
They see us when we are tired, angry, disappointed, vulnerable, broke, excited, confused and completely ourselves.

They know the person behind the photographs, titles, positions, achievements and public applause.
The world may applaud us.
Our followers may celebrate us.
Our colleagues may praise us.But our spouses live with the unvarnished version of us.

So, before you are too quick to praise a man or woman because of what you see or hear about them, ask their spouse. Reputation is what people say about us.Character is what the person who lives with us knows about us. Sometimes, the most honest character reference you can ever get is not from the people who admire us
but from the person who shares a home with us.

Our spouses are our mirrors that picture us with clarity beyond the public perception of who we are.

Jarlath Uche Opara
jarlathuche@gmail.com