a feature story

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ITCHY WEDDING
BEND?
Sego used to run a sports bar up until her
husband got so territorial and possessive that
she ended up closing the bar to please him,
but at what cost? Well that was just the
beginning of another uphill battle for her.
Growing up all Sego wanted to do was do
better for her children more than what her
parents had done for and her siblings. But at
nineteen, Sego was already pregnant with her
first child, from a man all the girls wanted to
be with or seen with. So you can imagine the
headache of having to see your partner
fraternizing with other women, though you
are faithful to him and likewise for the men.
Infidelity is always a threat to every
relationship, but it complicates and or
destroys lives when it happens in a marriage.
Hence my need to want to know the impact
of infidelity on the marriage institution.
Firstly you have to know that they are types
of infidelity it’s not just a sexual thing like
most people think it is. Cheating comes in
many colors, four to be exact according to
one Formica, a blogger.
When asked to explain what marriage is, two
married elders from Church for all Nations
[CFaN], which is situated in commerce park
Gaborone, they answered, it is a covenant
between two people who strive to love each
other by caring for one another, seeking to
meet one another’s needs as far as it is
possible, overlooking one another’s
weaknesses and faults, exercising patience
and kindness. There is humility and
meekness as each party strives to protect the
other, encourage the other and build them
up. The parties are not self-seeking, but
strive for the benefit of the other partner. In
this relationship an atmosphere of trust and
mutual honour exists, which makes the two
individuals a strong team. On this strong
team, a family is built – children are raised in
an environment cloaked in love and
acceptance and they understand boundaries –
that fosters confidence in themselves and
respect for other people in them. Out of this
environment, emerge whole people who give
back into society and are able to contribute
positively to a broken world.
“My husband, the Father of my last three
children had an emotional affair with a
woman who stays at the Tlokweng boarder
whom will call Ms. T, and by him spilling his
guts to this woman he was baking one more
hump for our relationship to go through
among hundred other problems we were
facing,” said Sego the mother of seven kids,
setting on a log near Shell gas station at the

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River walk shopping mall. Sego also shared
how this woman will call her on her cell
phone to tell her how she was with her
husband even though she, Sego was with her
husband at the same time and place. So the
emotional affair lead Ms. T to be obsessed
with Sego’s husband.
That’s one type of infidelity, were your
partner goes and express his feelings and
opinions about your relationship and its
problems to another creating a rift between
two married people. The reason being the
partner will no longer want to talk to you as
he or she used to before because they have an
alternative place to unload at, and this makes
one partner feel cheated, because they will in
fact be cheated of genuine conversations one
of the vital aspects that makes a marriage.
According to Michael J. Formica, a
Psychology Today blogger, other types of
infidelity are object affairs, the cheating
partner neglects the relationship to focus on
something else; work, a video game, an
intense involvement in floral arrangement to
the detriment of his or her love life. And
sexual affairs which are exactly what they
sounds like: the adulterer rents cheap hotel
rooms for sex or makes use of public toilets,
sometimes they even make use of the
marriage bed, but note they is emotional
intimacy. A sexual affair is strictly about
nookie, nothing more.
The last type is the traditional kind of
cheating, where you have two parallel
partnerships that are both sexual and
emotional, and it's this kind of liaison that is
very common in Botswana and children
usually result in this form of infidelity. The
reason being that the two share an intimacy
which might be everything except that the
other party usually a man will have a wife
waiting at home.
Musicians have even made songs dedicated
to this type of adultery and I had one song not
so long ago titled “Monna ga a latelwe lapeng
la nyatsi” playing on Radio Botswana as part
of their Sunday afternoon playlist. The title of
the song in English translates to “A man is
not trailed to the house of the lady he cheats
with.” So you can imagine the type of
message this song is spreading to the nation.
After conducting an investigation in and
around Gaborone on how people view and
feel about infidelity and the marriage
institution with regard to different sexual
orientations. Fifty-six percent of the people
involved in the survey felt that the ever rising
number of people with different sexual
orientations that is homosexuals and trans-
genders have considerably affected the

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meaning of what a traditional family let alone
marriage. So gradually a traditional family is
disappearing from in front of us, hence the
question what is the world going to be like
during the time of our great-grandchildren?
In the same investigation conducted when
one twenty-two year old participant was
asked a question in relation to an article that
was published by Sunday Standard
newspaper dated August 9, 2015 titled
“FAMILY IS A FADING INSTITUTION IN
BOTSWANA” he answered, and I quote “It
is the result of infidelities because now
marriage is all about money and luxury, so if
men fail to provide ladies start to find
someone who can.”
Though it’s known that it’s not only women
who take part in committing this act, it is
agreeable that yes today most marriages are
based on the notion “what can I get from it.”
Be it emotional stability, children, financial
relief or just sex so one doesn’t have to go
and pay for it in the streets, marriage today
really is a mediocre of the real thing that our
grandparents grow up in.
Donald an official at BOFWA a youth clinic
situated in phase 4, stated that marriages
today faces many threats and if a couples is
not quick to see looming troubles and deal
with them they will have an unsuccessful
marriages, because marriages are worked at
in order for them to survive to tell the stories.
He also said that lack of communication and
financial troubles are also one of the leading
courses of divorces because it’s not just
infidelities that cause divorce. He says “in
most cases, infidelities are caused by loss of
intimacy and money troubles especially if
one partner is careless.” He continued to say
that he has been married a long time and
when he gets home he doesn’t always wait for
the wife to wait on him but he helps,
sometimes he even cooks for his wife more
so that their children are grown and have left
home.
Another participant a Sixty-one year old man,
a teacher at Legae Academy when asked how
he will feel if his partner cheated he answered
with meek eyes “I will be devastated, she is
my life.” Another young lady when asked the
same question she said and I quote “I’d be
okay because I would probably be doing
something even worse!” she said with a smirk
and without remorse. So men and women
imagine what your partner is doing that can
be worse than your cheating on them...
From other various subjects involved in the
investigation, ninety-four percent of them
had almost the same feeling when asked how
they would feel when cheated on by their

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partners either married, working toward
marriage or single. Their answers ranged
from I quote “depressed,” “I would feel
disrespected, unappreciated and emotionally
affected,” “disappointed and betrayed,” “I
would die,” “traumatized and heartbroken,”
and “I will defiantly divorce him.”
Sego also shared that relationships that have
suffered infidelity can be revived because her
relationship is the living testament to that
truth. But in the investigation conducted,
twenty-two percent of the participants agreed
that a marriage destroyed by infidelity is
unrepairable, while fifty-six percent said
there is still hope to repair a marriage ravaged
infidelity and twenty-two percent were in
limbo with regard to the question.
During the study, a monumental sixty-one
percent of the participants agreed that, yes
adulterous man really affect the image of
their counterparts “women” when they
subject them to the humiliation of being
cheated on while they play the good wife at
home and wait eagerly for the man to come
home.
This is one of the reasons why cries of
feminism are head all over the world because
women are tired of being left at home waiting
for the man to come home, while in fact they
can put their minds at work and improve our
world, hence we have married and working
women today.
As is the culture in Botswana, that a man can
have a side chick or “nyatsi,” many children
are born in this environment though a man
has a legal family not too far away. This
culture nurtures children who are unsure of
themselves because they grow in
environments where they are told your father
was hit by a train before you were born, then
suddenly when they are all grown, they will
here whispers around the neighborhood
saying that a certain man is their father and
eventually its conformed.
This type of situations unsettle young adults
because they lose the sense of self because
they have been lied to all their lives and
suddenly they have trust issues, hence they
cycle repeats it’s self again. But this was not
the case for one Ms. Lentle from Selebi
Phikwe, she was happily married to her
husband for years, but they had a problem,
they could not conceive. So the parents of the
husband started pressuring and emotionally
abusing her because of her misfortune.
Eventually they convinced their son that she
was not woman enough to bear them a
grandchild, so he went out and cheated her,
hoping to father a child. Eventually Ms.
Lentle had a far too itchy wedding bend on

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her finger and she wanted out, and they got a
divorce.
Down the line Ms. Lentle was with child
from another man, and her ex-husband could
not believe his luck, he committed suicide
while the ex-wife was pregnant because he
could not bear to watch his love carrying a
child of another man and they were not
together because of his family. So he wanted
out and his out was death by his own head.
So watch out married people, don’t let your
former families get in between your new
family because it will not take root.
Thirty-nine percent of the investigation
participants agreed that internet or new
Medias such as Facebook and websites that
cater for cheaters are to blame for the high
rate of infidelity because people lack self-
control and they is too much temptation
online. But twenty-eight percent disagreed
that it is not to blame because we cannot
blame technology or progress for our faults
and lack of self of control. Thirty-three
percent of the subjects questioned were
neutral to the matter.
When asked if globalization was to blame for
the fading marriage institution all over the
world, sixty-one percent of the subjects
answered that they disagree with that notion,
but it’s up to us as a nation to see that we do
not lose this institution, that has helped first
world countries like the United States of
America be what they are today because they
know that a marriage gives birth to a family
the backbone of the social fabric that is
society.
Culture across the world recognize the
importance of a marriage but note that today
people don’t enjoy sharing their partners
especially with the many diseases and viruses
flying around, or is it just that people today
are too selfish. Well in this case being selfish
is not a fault because one will be protecting
his or her family from the abrasive threats
waiting not too far away to attack and see a
marriage dissolved. We must admit that
children who grow in a secure environment
like in a loving marriage have better faire in
this big bad world.
Infidelity has been one the leading causes of
divorces of the years. But according to the
High Court of Botswana in Gaborone, since
the year 1994 until 2012, the divorce rate has
been growing at an alarming rate. Reaching
an all-time high in year 2010 with one
thousand eight hundred [1 800] divorces. But
since 2011 the numbers of divorces have
been going down. With this knowledge also
note that in 2012, Assistant Minister of
Presidential Affairs and Public

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Administration, Dr. Gloria Somolokae stated
that one thousand Two hundred [1 250]
people were being affected by the HIV virus
every month that year. So one might wonder
how those facts fare today, are as many
people still being affected by the virus and
how many of them contract this virus as a
result of being cheated on by their spouses or
partners.
Mrs. Bell a pastor’s wife at Church for All
Nations agrees that fornication leads to
infidelity and I quote “YES if partners are
willing to give their bodies without
commitment, why would it be different
where there is ‘commitment’.” She also
indicated that she agrees that the internet is to
blame for high rates of infidelity and media
gives a very inaccurate picture of marriage.
Infidelity (even only once) is extremely
destructive. It takes many years of
consistency to build trust, but it can take only
a moment of stupidity to destroy it
completely, says Mrs Bell. The emotional
energy spent on working through trust issues
and the effect that it has on a person’s self-
esteem and the effects of depression that so
often follow are exhausting and far reaching.
Damage is caused to other relationships,
children are plagued with insecurity and fear,
and individuals work output is diminished,
but to name a few of the ripples, continued
Mrs Bell.
With regards to repairing a broken marriage
as a result of unfaithfulness of one or both
partners Mrs. Bell said that it will take years
of consistency and communication and a true
repentant heart on the part of the unfaithful
spouse. For the one that has been hurt, they
need to choose to forgive daily and not to
dwell on the past.
Mrs. Bell also gives advice to people who are
looking to be married or are already married,
she says that the motive for you getting
married must not be YOU. If your attitude
is “what can I get out of this?” you are on a
road to difficulty. “Two selfish people are
only going to be fighting for what they
want. They are going to be disappointed
when their expectations are not met and they
will become critical, cynical and bitter
toward one another” she states in her return
email.
She continues to say choose instead to lay
your life down for the other person, seek to
uplift them, encourage them. Seek the good
in them and focus on that. Overlook the bad
and exercise patience. Seek to protect
them. Forgive quickly and move on. Be
generous to one another, especially in the

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area of sex. Learn your spouse’s love
language and speak it often. Learn to
communicate your expectations effectively
and to resolve conflict constructively.
Sego is still in a marriage contract with the
father of her last three children though they
don’t stay in the same city now, but she says
they are doing all they can to stay together
and enrich their union.