“No relationship is all sunshine, but once you’ve learned how to play in the rain, you’ve discovered the secret to surviving the passing storm together” Phebby katebe

It’s an unhappy time when a marriage ends, but sometimes it needs to happen in order to move on to better things so like every marriage faces hardship and most couple’s think that love will make the world go around but the truth is love is just one of the important factors you need to take care of, if I take you way back !Do you remember your marriage vows? “For better, for worse…”“In sickness and in health…”“For richer, for poorer…”These promises presuppose tough times and this means marriage is meant to keep people together, not just when things are good, but particularly when they are not.

That’s why married people take marriage vows, not just wishes so that when tensions mount in marriage conflict, spouses don’t regret what they didn’t say but hold there tongue, until God holds there heart, so one thing you have to know is that great marriages are contagious; if you want a great marriage, surround yourself with couples who have one, if you can do that I can assure you that no touch time will destroy what God had put together.

24 year old Phebby katebe is a divorcee and a single mother of two who has faced a lot of hardships in life in search of great life which leads her into failing pregnant and getting married at a tender age she explains her story “I am a last born in a family of four and I am someone that grew up been spoiled you know that last born attitude but everything changed when death took my father’s life in the year 2008 and the process wasn’t an easy one because our lives had changed from good to bad I dropped out of school due to some financial problems when I was 17 years old in 2012 during my first year of grade 12 by then I lived in the Copperbelt and I was at Ndeke Caritas Secondary School.

Because of this problem I had to travel to Lusaka in the search for help hoping that someone could help but nothing came up, the end solution to my problem was give up on school hoping pressure would reduce and I started staying with my mom’s young sister who has been like a mother to me and we lived with her kids, though life was never easy but we managed to pull through by God’s grace.  As time went by I had an opportunity to meet this charming person whom I met in 2013 this is a guy I had fallen in love with, wow we were so in love such that a lot of people would admire what we had till I one day I discovered I was pregnant for him.

It wasn’t a shock to me because I knew it was the only way I was going to be with him forever as a way to end my problems “I knew I was wrong but circumstances allowed it, I hoped for the better but slowly things turned out bad the love and affection he showed me slowly went away , he was moving away from me and I felt the space in between us which made me cry so many times to myself and prayed over everything with the hope that he would change some day but it was all in vein and all I was doing was forcing things. In the same year I was pregnant on the 23 of June 2014 I had lost my elder brother the second born. Life felt a bit shaken but I still had to carry on and on the 30 of June I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, which then brought hope for me.

The first two weeks my baby daddy was around with a bit of support to the kid then I later discovered he moved in with another woman, I felt broken knowing that I had loved him, I sacrificed losing my mother’s trust just to be with him, knowing my Mom to be a good person but despite the situation she pushed me up again she encouraged me through these hard times, till he was no were to be seen and never brought support for his child.

I later decided to get a job at new Buffalo casino downtown as a waitress and I was slowly getting out of it with the support from friends and family I kept going with my new single life until 2years later I decided to give myself a second chance thinking if I would date someone who I had been close with for many years and that maybe things could work out, yes everything was prefect from the beginning he accepted me and my daughter we had great plans together we would do almost everything together till we decided to settle that’s when I said to myself yes this is the right person for me like they say God’s plans are never our plans, slowly we started our marriage life despite things were not okay with him but we were pulling through, later

I discovered I was pregnant again by then my daughter was only 2years 4months well it wasn’t a problem then cause I had the man of my dreams around and I knew he would be there for us all, slowly as life was going by things started becoming bitter we would fight though yeah fights are normal in every marriage or relationship and it is believed that fights makes marriage even more stronger, on the 30th of April 2017 I gave bath to my second born (boy) to some extent I started to feel like a prisoner to my own emotions we slowly grow out of each other we started doing things separately and things just started to become even more bad I would go cry out to my sister and even to his elder sister.

I ended up losing so much weight I knew my mom hated to see me like that but then I knew there was nothing everyone could do cause I choose that life for myself, till I met a certain old friend who I had shared my story to he advised me to get a job and that would maybe help keep my mind busy from every drama that I was going through, it wasn’t easy to get a job but it happened so miraculously I didn’t believe it could happen knowing i didn’t complete school even when the same person was calling to interview me I moved with less faith cause I had lost it, he connected me to a certain company which am still working for now despite I didn’t start right there we started out with some training and as were waiting to be called back for official work then boom Stan stepped in, it was on a Friday evening that we had a fight out of nowhere i reached a stage where I was tired of bring the one being treated like a fool or the time I realized I was tired of being used all the time I had to fight back, yeah it wasn’t right for a woman to do that but am only human and I was tired of the mental and emotional mistreatment, we had a serious fight till he left the house and came back following day to pick up his clothes and said he was living me for good, at first my pride came in and I took it was OK if he left cause I knew I was tired 2days later he never came or called I remember calling him 23 times and texted 15 times and never got any response, I sat and said to myself “Phebby you are jobless and broke how will you be able to take care of your kids and pay for every bill” I never had answers to all the questions I asked myself.

It was this time that my family asked me to move out of the rent house, moving out and thinking of going back to moms place was one of the hardest decisions I had to make, it took me almost a week to accept that I will have to move back to my mom’s house and this time with another kid, I cried I felt even more broken then before I hated him for coming into my life adding up then go like nothing ever happened, I had to move back to moms house jobless and broke some days later elders sat us down and all he could say was he wanted a divorce despite I was hurt and torn apart when he said in front of everyone that he never loved me and that he was just forced to marry me.

Oh God that sentence almost made me want to faint but I held on strong to myself and granted him the divorce he wanted, I stayed back at moms place and by God’s grace less than a week I was called for work were I had done the trainings as a merchandiser to say I had qualified for the job on a Monday morning I reported for work feeling so broken and not myself such that everyone could notice I had to pull myself together and asked my boss if she could send me to work out of Lusaka with the hope that I would get over everything easy of which she did without even knowing the biggest reason behind it.

I started working in the ShopRite stores as a merchandiser it wasn’t easy being away from my family and kids but I had to do it anyway, I slowly started to pick myself up piece after piece, to some point I felt like drinking everyday would help but it was never the solution to get over everything I asked myself “am I cursed? What wrong do I have that all men use me and just go like that? Am I not good enough to their liking don’t I give them what they want? Am I that bad in bed? So many questions came in and I almost lost hope of even praying but then I remembered that hadn’t been for God I wouldn’t have had the job I have so I decided to keep the faith and kept going and here I am today its now a year and I have moved on i have a good job that helps me provide for myself and family.

To every young lady who is going through emotional mistreatment you have to know that there always hope on the outside of that prison called marriage don’t kill yourself In the name of marriage holding of course they say “ you can’t just give up on someone because the situation’s not ideal. Great relationships aren’t great because they have no problems.

They’re great because both people care enough about the other person to find a way to make it work.” but to some extend if thing don’t work please don’t be ashamed to go back to your mother’s house that people will talk and guess what people talk all the time weather you do good or bad, it’s better to come back to your mother’s house with as many kids as possible than to come back in a coffin, note you can always start again stop being in a failed marriage simply because you can’t have 5 or more baby daddies it’s better to have your freedom than crying to yourself every night, wake up and fight for your happiness and one thing you will realize that all you ever did was waste your time with the wrong person and another important aspect get an education or venture in business to avoid being a punching bag in marriage.