When a woman queries her husband

We were already over thirteen 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 the phone and I informed her about the financial transaction.

My wife, Carol screamed with the words, “No, you shouldn’t have done that. Why should you do something like that? I’m a banker with fourteen years’ banking experience. You don’t do that.” (She was a banker before she joined me in full-time ministry)

As she was about to angrily lecture me, I told her to be silent and listen to me. I said, “Girlfriend, listen to me. Stop issuing verbal queries. I am your husband.” She wanted to keep talking, but I told her very firmly that she should keep quiet and listen to me. Carol knows that I am not the shouting type, but can be very firm in a kind way. Seriously firm. She kept quiet and I started telling her that she should not dare query me again. I told her that I would be angry with her if she tried it again. I told her that she should correct me in love and not queries. I concluded by telling her that no normal husband would like to be queried by the wife and that I would want our daughters to be loaded with this truth.

What she did next completely melted my heart. She apologised profusely and said, “It will never happen again.” She told me that she loves me so much and that she will always respect and 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 resist when his wife queries 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 1 Corinthians 11:3 says “ And the head of the woman is the man.” Ephesian 5:23 also says, “For the husband is the head of the wife.” When a husband does not behave wisely as 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 here is that men should not issue their wives’ verbal queries, and neither should wives issue their husbands’ verbal queries. As I finish writing this article this evening, 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 not to query their men, because no man enjoys being queried unless he has been “Jezebelised” or traumatised into submission. Love you.