Put some respect on her marriage: In defense of Kierra Sheard’s viral interview

Photo source: Instagram

I wanted to share some points that I haven’t seen on this recent video that went viral of our Gospel and entrepreneur sis, Kierra Sheard. While she was promoting her upcoming film Line Sisters, she was talking with Page Six about a marital lesson her mother taught her. 

What has blogs and people talking is the snippet from the interview where she said she would rather pay for her friends to stay at a hotel than to stay overnight in her home that she shares with her husband, Jordan Kelly. The Page Six headline led with the potentially most controversial take from that interview and ran with it, but that’s how it goes on the Wild Wild Web: Sensationalism 101.

The Kellys have been married a little over a year, so when she made this statement in the interview, many people made comments projecting negativity on Kierra as a person and on her marriage. She responded to the negative reaction to the video clip via her Instagram account over the weekend:

Upon hearing a shortened clip the first time, I didn’t get any of what was said before the viral statement, so I can see how what she said could sound a certain way. Y’all it’s 2022, and we still haven’t made time to seek out some context? It’s not fair when we jump to conclusions based off a small piece of a larger puzzle. Some of  the negative commentary in response to the viral clip suggested Kierra was insecure about having her friends around her man, that men will cheat if they want, and many other points of view. 

While some of this can be true on its own, the issue I have with it is that we are not giving space for someone else’s marriage to run how they want it to. Marriage is only objective on a small amount of things, but marriage is what you and your spouse make it as unto God. Regardless whether if it was even our business to know, Kierra shared the information; so now, I need for us to stop pretending that these following points don’t exist in the same conversations being had in various comment sections.

How often are people staying overnight at their married friends’ homes?

“She must need new friends and a new husband if she can’t trust them,” was a common response to Kierra’s viral statement. Most of us are grown, especially if you’re old enough to marry. Besides the case of a legit emergency, how many of you stay the night at your married friend’s house or would allow your friend to stay overnight in your marital home?

This scenario doesn’t seem so common that everyone does it. It’s totally normal when you’re at your single friend’s home, but in their marriage season? I doubt that happens often if at all. Not to mention we’re still in a pandemic, when there seems to be more understanding if you don’t want extra folks at your house for any amount of time.

I don’t think there needs to be offense taken in this situation that Kierra spoke on. If they’re friends, they would understand and respectfully handle their own sleeping arrangements. If this was a leisure and not emergency situation, the friend(s) should be able to get a hotel room, AirBnB, or something on their own other than staying at their married friend’s home. This is not to put the friends against each other, it’s about boundaries that should be expressed because things are simply on a different level now that marriage is in the mix.

Respect and honor for other people’s marriages

Whether you agree with what Kierra said about her marriage and friend boundaries or not, it doesn’t matter. Respecting the marriage is more important. How do marriages get disrespected? One big way is through familiarity aka getting too comfortable. This is why some of us may not talk to certain friends or even family members because familiarity got in the way of respect and boundaries were crossed. 

I believe Kierra’s intentions were good in what she was saying. There’s no say on how her friends would be while staying overnight in her marital home because she can’t control them, nor can she control her husband. What Kierra and any wife can do, is manage their home to the best of their abilities, including minding who is allowed in and for how long. 

To be fair, what Kierra shared was a lesson her mother taught her; she didn’t come out saying it was insecurity, or her husband did something wrong in the past. She was sharing a lesson from the previous generation that is wise to practice today. Let’s also not forget that Kierra is a public figure, so there’s an extra side of caution that she has to apply to her life, image, home, and marriage. As outside people looking in, we have to respect that and not be so quick to impose these narratives that may be totally false to satisfy some desire within to bring someone’s covenant down to the level of a scripted TV drama. Would you want someone talking about you or your marriage like that?

Many friendships are impacted by life milestones

Ask your favorite married people if marriage changed the dynamic of some of their friendships, and there’s a guarantee that it has. Going from single to married is a huge transition in life, and not everyone is going to be able to handle that change, friends included. 

How your friends respond to your life changes and transitions are important to take note of in case you need to talk about it, be more intentional with your time, or move on with your life. With the transition in mind, new boundaries and rules of engagement will most likely happen because you’re on different (but not better than) levels with your friend, and that can reflect in how you decide to keep your home as a married person. This article from Wedding Wire talks more about five ways friendship changes after marriage.

The top priorities of a wife does not include friends

Biblical truth be told, friends are not that high up on the list of a wife’s or husband’s priorities, so in this scenario, Kierra is not wrong for her stance. If we look at what a Christian wife’s priorities are, the top three on the list are God, her husband, and her children. Everything and everybody else can vary in priority depending on the woman’s circumstances. This article by Genuine Christian Women gives examples of “flexible priorities” that a modern-day wife has to consider in her day-to-day affairs.

A wife should prioritize her husband over her friends, otherwise, why would she even marry? Perhaps those who found fault with Kierra’s statement in defense of their own friendships are coming from the sisters-before-misters mindset, which is beautiful on one hand and can get muddled by familiarity on the other. Some of us have always known sisterhood through deep, quality friendships more than longevity with a loyal man. I totally get that, but that mindset has to adjust when one of the girls in the group chooses to join her life with her man.

We have to respect our now married friend’s season in life and the changes that come with that, as marriage is to be held in honor by all (Hebrews 13:4). If you want to continue to be in her life, there are ways that you can connect and build your friendship even if you’re both in different seasons. You are not in competition with her husband, and more than likely, you will not be seen as someone who wants to cause harm to her marriage.

At the end of the day, every marriage is different, and wives have the inside knowledge of what’s going on in their marriage. It’s out of order for a wife to helicopter over her spouse to keep tabs on him, and I don’t believe that’s what Kierra is doing. It’s in a wife’s right to protect their marital home from the outside world, and that includes withholding certain details about their marriage to folks, respecting her spouses’ boundaries, and protecting their marriage from anything they could discern as cause for concern.

Let’s respect marriages, especially the young ones. We have already seen the damage that negative comments make on couples in the past, so let’s learn from that and pray for marriages instead of contributing to division.

What are your thoughts on Kierra Sheard’s statement about her boundaries with friends and her marriage? Share below!