We’ve all at one time or the other watched the eviction shows on Big Brother Show. If you haven’t try to do so. It’s quite instructive.
The show starts with 15 participants who live together in a house, and then we all, including Big Brother, get to see all the shenanigans they get up to. At the end of a given period, Big Brother evicts the most anti-social participant until a winner is declared.
Our relationships are very much like participating in a show where Big Brother and the public are watching.
What is your behavior like in a marriage or consensual relationship? Relationships are meant to be enjoyed when you are simply enduring it or abusing your spouse, you need to know that people are watching.
Relationships are meant to be places of refuge from the harsh realities of work and of life. One is expected to blossom in a relationship, such that it encourages others to desire to get into theirs.
Jumoke is a widely sought motivational speaker. Along with her law practice, she has wowed her way into official places angels feared to tread. Money answers to her bidding. Bayo her husband is a mechanical engineer, who’s well known and respected in his industry. He has enough to be husband and father to Jumoke and their 3 kids, should circumstances compel. Money is not their problem. Socially, he isn’t known as Bayo, but as Jumoke’s husband. Bayo’s identity has been submerged in his wife’s because of the social presence she has created for herself. Jumoke seems to value the limelight more than her relationship with her husband.
One day she gets invited to speak at a social engagement. Bayo agrees to go with her to her speaking engagement before they attend his nephew’s wedding. The attention gets to her head as usual. She poses for the cameras as she is invited up to the podium to speak. She enjoys every bit of the show, and she deliberately ignores his signals from the back of the hall to round up. Bayo sends an SMS to say he’s leaving in 5 minutes, which he sees her read.
She suddenly remembers that Cinderella loses her carriage and finery because she left late, so she reluctantly extricates herself from the chains of the hero worship. She approaches her husband, gives him the eye, and with a low hiss says, “Let’s go, I ‘m ready!” Bayo follows his wife. He would have left her and she wouldn’t have been able to show off their latest car to her fans. She couldn’t afford that; a celebrity doesn’t order an Uber.
The fans heard the hiss, noticed the eye, and the body language spoke volumes to them.
Many marriages are like Jumoke and Bayo’s. Empty shells packaged for the public eye. They aren’t a place of refuge and comfort. Many couples live together like strangers and a good number aren’t talking to each other. Meanwhile, separation or divorce isn’t on the cards usually for fear of societal disapproval or for financial reasons.
Check your marriage. What body language, hiss, or eye roll is Big Brother seeing?