VICTORIA KASANGA writes
A woman has divorced her husband for impregnating three different woman and also dating more than 12, including a married woman whose husband later committed suicide.
Apart from granting divorce, the court ordered the man to compensate his former wife K15,000 for subjecting her to anguish and embarrassment in their troubled marriage.
Racheal Lungu 28 of Lubuto Township had sued her husband Chila Munkombwe of the same township for divorce.
She painfully narrated in a fully-packed court that Mr Munkombwe has had more 12 illicit affairs including a married woman.
Ms Lungu said her husband started seeing a married woman by the name of Lucy who later divorced her husband and due to their continued infidelity, the woman’s ex-husband committed suicide.
“When Lucy was divorced, my husband completely stopped coming back home. I called my mum to call his relatives so that they can help us but all of them refused saying they were tired of our drama,” she said.
The two got married in 2010 and have three children together and their case came before Kabushi Local Court senior presiding magistrate Agnes Mulenga sitting with Mildred Namwizye and Evelyn Nalwizya.
She told the court that just after two months of their marriage when they lived in Livingstone, her husband started a love affair with a woman by the name of Rita.
Ms Lungu said in 2012 when he started working, the situation worsened as the number of women in his life increased and he impregnated two women by the names of Sarah and Maggie.
“In 2014 I got transferred from Livingstone to Ndola. I was happy because I knew that the change of environment was going to be good for me and also for my marriage,” she said.
Unfortunately, the man resumed his illicit love affair in Ndola with a woman by the name of Natasha who became pregnant with his child but she left and went to live in Lusaka.
Ms Lungu said both families sat them down a number of times but her partner was not changing.
“We sat down the two of us, each one told the friend their problems. He told me to improve in the areas of cleaning and preparing food for him of which I adjusted but for him he did not stop moving around with different women,” she said
She said he wanted her to be cleaning the bedroom early but by the time she leaves for work he always remained sleeping.
She said when her mother and sisters came, his husband came back home and did not even greet his mother in-law and just went straight to the bedroom.
Ms Lungu said she followed him to the room and asked him why he did not great the visitors, but her husband started beating her until her relatives rescued her from his grip.
He chased them the following morning.
Ms Lungu said from that time her husband started living with Lucy, whose husband had committed suicide, he would only come back home briefly.
Lucy, she said, would drive him home up to the gate for him to pick up something while on other occasions, he would drive her vehicle.
She said when her husband was not working he used to be a good man and would not cheat on her.
In his statement, Mr Munkombwe did not object and added that the decision his wife made was actually long overdue.
He said her decision to divorce him was the only good thing she has ever done since their eight years of marriage.
Mr Munkombwe said he was a smart man but his wife could not keep up with his cleanliness and she never cooked for him. She delegated the cooking to the maid, who prepared food for him.
“She can’t clean the house properly, she doesn’t even know how to dispose her sanitary towels properly. There is no way I can eat food prepared by her after seeing all her dirty,” he said.
“I am with Lucy because I love her, she does everything this woman cannot do. She ensures I am happy at all times and I don’t even feel like going back to my own home,” he said.
In passing judgment, the court granted divorce on grounds that the man did not respect his wife and had so many women his life.
He was ordered to compensate his former K15,000 with the first instalment of K1,000 and thereafter K500 monthly and to pay K 600 per month as child maintenance.