We were already over 13 years in marriage and had completed having all our four biological children. There was a financial transaction that needed to go through a banking process. She called me on phone and I informed her about the financial transaction. My wife, Carol, screamed with words like, “No! Why should you do something like that? I am a banker with 14 years experience.” She was a banker.
As she was about to angrily lecture me, I told her to be silent and listen to me. I said words like these: “Girlfriend listen to me. Stop issuing me verbal queries. I am your husband.” She kept quiet and I started telling her that she should not dare query me again. I told her that she should correct me in love and not queries. I concluded by telling her that no normal husband will like to be queried by the wife and that I will want our daughters to be loaded with this truth.
She apologised profusely and said: “It will never happen again.” She told me that she loves me so much and that she will always honour me as her husband. I replied by telling her that if she were physically present I would have held her, kissed her and swung her around. We laughed and that was the end of the matter.
It was that day I finally knew that there is this spirit of leadership in a normal man that will make him to resist when his wife is querying him. He can take a verbal or written query from his male boss in his place of work. He can take a verbal or written query from a female boss in his place of work, but he cannot take any form of query from his wife.
The reason is that Ephesian 5:23 says: “For the husband is the head of the wife.” When a husband does not behave wisely like I did, what a wife should do (which my wife, Carol, started doing) is to supply her husband with her higher level of wisdom in a respectful and loving manner just as she would do to her boss in the office who is about to take a foolish decision. If she has the temperament not to query her boss, then she should also cultivate the temperament not to query her husband.
I am not saying that husbands should query their wives.
A wise husband should not query his wife because the Bible says that she is his helper. You encourage your helper to keep helping you. Colossians 3:19 says: “But husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.”
What I am saying is that men should not issue their wives with verbal queries neither should wives issue their husbands with verbal queries. As I finish writing this article, I will pick my phone and go to the marriage counseling WhatsApp page I share exclusively with my daughters. The page is nicknamed “Charlie’s angels.” I will advise them never to query their men because no man enjoys being queried unless he has been “Jezebelized” or traumatised into submission. Love you!
