Woman marries 5 times in 5 years

By Stanford Chiwanga

A BINGA woman from Siansundu is unlucky in marriage as she revealed that she has customarily married five men in five years but four of the men left her for different reasons.

Since 2010 Miss Regina Tshuma (not her real name) has watched as five men entered her life, married her and “divorced” her.

In an interview with Sunday News Miss Tshuma (25) said her love life has been nothing but a catalogue of marital disasters. In 2010 her first husband, when she was 20 years old, left her after he fell in love with another woman.

The most poignant thing is that the woman who snatched her husband was her best friend.

“It is one thing to be betrayed by your husband, but quite another to be betrayed by your best friend. When it happened it felt like a knife had been put through my heart. I could have coped if my husband had run off with a woman I had never met, but my friend knew that she was ripping my life apart. I was like her sister, she was my best friend, she was family,” said Miss Tshuma.

The following year Miss Tshuma met another man, one she thought was Mr Right but heartbreak was about to visit her again.

Her second husband walked out on her after he found out she had been married a year before.

She said: “I did not tell him that I was married, I lied that my ex-husband was just an ex-boyfriend. He was from Manjolo so I thought he would never find out but he found out about my previous marriage one month after we had been married.

He told me to go back to my parents and that was the end of our marriage.”

In 2012 Miss Tshuma did it again. A new man walked into her life but like the former husbands he did not stay long. But unlike the previous husbands Miss Tshuma’s third husband did not walk out on her — he died.

“My third husband worked in Bulawayo and he was from Siansundu like me. I stayed at home looking after our homestead as he was a teacher in Bulawayo. He loved me for who I am and he did not mind that I had two failed marriages.

However, it did not last because he was involved in an accident in Lupane,” said a tearful Miss Tshuma.

In 2013, out of desperation, Miss Tshuma married again. This time she found herself in a polygamous marriage. Her new husband had two wives and she was the third one. Unlike the aforementioned failed three marriages, the fourth one collapsed through her choice.

Miss Tshuma said: “I was prepared to be in such a marriage because my husband had promised that I was the last wife he would ever marry. My father had two wives so it didn’t matter to me. But he lied to me because about five or six months after he married me he had an affair with some girl. He was also complaining that I was failing to get pregnant.

“There was no food and he started beating me. I tried to be patient but the violence escalated. I also felt neglected because he stopped sleeping with me. But it was the hunger and the violence that made me go back home. My mother also advised me to come back home. Anyway she was against the marriage because she didn’t want me to be in a polygamous marriage.”

The four failed marriages and the heartbreaks could have seen any other woman give up on marriage, but not Miss Tshuma.

In June she got married again and this time she believes it will be for good.

“My new husband is from Siachilaba and my marriage is rock solid. The good thing is that he was my classmate at secondary and he knows my past. We went for HIV tests and I am glad that we were both negative. As I speak I am pregnant,” she said.

Asked why she was quick to move on to marriage with five men in five years, Miss Tshuma said because the men proposed marriage and because she was big-headed.

“I fell in love easily and I did not listen to anyone. If this marriage fails, I am not getting married again. I will stay single for the rest of my life,” said Miss Tshuma. Sunday News