A woman endured nearly ten years of a long-distance marriage, sitting quietly like a painter waiting for paint to dry, while her husband was only able to blue tick their union most of the time.
The patience and love that 48-year-old Misozi Nyau had for her 52-year-old husband Angaletha Banda gradually dried up like the Kariba Dam, but this time there was no romantic water left to rekindle the love, not even for the “three hours” that she claimed to have left it.
According to the Matero Local Court, Banda, a Kabanana-born bricklayer, left his wife for two women in 2016 and stopped being the head of the household, even assigning his side chicks to transfer money to his wife whenever he felt his kids were going hungry.
At forty, when life had barely begun for her, he ceased providing services to her. Nyau eventually put down her tools and decided to file for divorce from her husband, Angaletha, after she had grown weary of waiting for him to return.
She informed the judge that the defendant paid a dowry of K250 when the couple got married in 1996, and they had lived together ever since.
However, since the beginning of their marriage, Banda has had problems with infidelity in their home, according to the lawsuit.
And in 2016, Banda chose to leave her and their kids for two separate women, ushering in a new era. She added that after he departed, he has never tried to make love to her or touch her; instead, he just walks by her house as if she were his neighbor.
“I have waited for him for a long time and now, I am tired. He does not even support his children financially, I suffer alone to feed them,” Nyau said.
She added that sometimes, his side chicks are the ones that call her and send her money.
“His girlfriends call me at times to tell me that your husband told me that you are hungry with the children, so here is some money to buy food. But I cannot continue like this. That is why I have come to court so that the court can help us put an order on how he will maintain his children since he denied me already,” she said.
When it was time for Banda to speak in the dock, he showed no remorse or an ounce of interest in the marriage insisting that he also wanted nothing to do with Nyau, while stating the obvious fact of having marital disputes for a long time which led him into the arms of another woman.
Hearing from both sides, Magistrate Harriet Mulenga reprimanded Banda and decided to send the shell of a marriage six feet under.
“But if you don’t sleep with your wife for eight years, who do you expect to sleep with her? Did you want to wait for her until the time she made a mistake so that you sue her for adultery while you are enjoying?”
“Because she is human and can err too. You could have sued her for divorce immediately you found another woman and didn’t want her,” Magistrate Mulenga told Banda