Veteran Nollywood actress, Joke Silva who has been happily married to fellow colleague Olu Jacobs for about 32 years, marked recently, spoke with The Sun about her new project centered on domestic violence in a recent interview.
In her words:
People say marriages are breaking here and there, fine. But the reason marriages are breaking up in Nollywood is because we are out there in the public domain. There are so many marriages breaking up among lawyers, bankers and doctors, and when you compare that to the number of marriages breaking up in Nollywood, you find that it is a very small percentage.
The fact is that social media is now our reality and it is having a lot of effect on the industry. So, when people say to me, ‘what advise are you giving younger people?’ My dear, that is what Light in The Dark is also about. The issue is that if someone is experiencing violence, male or female, leave the marriage. Leave it because when you die the other person continues living. For me, whether the abuse is emotional or physical, please leave; and let each party get counseling, then you can come back together if counseling works, but if not, don’t come back.
So, when people talk about ‘advice’ I don’t know what advice to give because I am not walking with their shoes, honestly. You tell somebody ‘have patience.’ What if that person has been having patience, patience and patience? Did I have patience in mine? Yes. Did I lose my temper? Actually, I think my son will say that I have a very short fuse. So, I think what is key to any marriage is grace.
Pray for the Lord to be the third person in your marriage. Pray for his grace to have wisdom, staying power, grace to have listening anointing. It is not just listening to what is being said but to everything, the body language, the way things are said. The grace to have respect for each other is key. The grace to want to have what is best for your partner is important.
If you want your partner to succeed, if that is your focus, then you too will succeed. And it is a two-way traffic. It is not the woman continuously wanting the husband to succeed or the husband wanting the wife to succeed alone; it has to be simultaneous. If the two of you are working together, the sky is the limit.
