By Ayo Onikoyi

Seasoned Nollywood actress and International Alaga (traditional marriage MC), Bose Alao-Omotoyosi is a happily married woman despite tough challenges she has encountered  in the institution. Unlike many who have opted out, believing matrimony is a limiting factor to their acting career, the mother of 4 beautiful girls actually sees her status as a blessing to her career.

In a chat with Potpourri sometime ago, she shared how marriage and motherhood have affected her career.

“It slowed me down, but marriage and motherhood have blessed my career more. I get to open doors that a single lady finds difficult to open. Marriage has helped and it’s still going to do more. It has affected my career positively because I get some endorsement deals that they wouldn’t give someone without a good profile. I’ve been able to mingle with people of high caliber. The respect marriage and motherhood bring to my career is beyond my imagination,” she said.

The actress admitted that the institution is not a bed of roses as she has learnt a lot of lessons to remain on course. She said she had to adjust and make a lot of sacrifices, highlighting in a subtle way what could bring about domestic violence.

Hear her: “It doesn’t help you saying “I’m a no-nonsense woman”. It increases the height of domestic violence, trust me. I’m not going to support it here, but I’m going to speak against it in a way that you’ll understand that most of the time, we really need to sit back and ask ourselves “What do we really want?”.

I have been in the kind of situation in my marriage where I said to myself “I just need to leave. I’m not doing this any more …”. Inside me, I’m not leaving. Whatever you won’t take, do not dish it to your spouse and vice versa. Marriage has also taught me recently to be very calm in addressing issues and to be very prayerful.”

On domestic violence, she advised, ” Domestic violence is terrible , most times, we need a break, to see and know if we really want to stay in such a marriage or change the situation. Yes, women are that powerful to end domestic violence. I am sure it is the most terrible time he (my husband) has passed through. I also took a lot of steps and stopped so many annoying things… To God be the glory, we still have misunderstandings even far worse than the one that lead to that ugly incident, but no hitting. God forbid! It’s something I don’t even want for my enemy. So far, I have found peace in Christ.”