They were looking for love.
They searched far and wide until an unconventional solution came along.
It was a social experiment.
Getting married at first sight it was.
Khumo had been looking for someone with whom she could connect, and she’d hope that they’d be on the same page.
“Sometimes it leads to a long-term monogamous relationship, sometimes it leads to something more casual but equally fulfilling, sometimes it leads to a whole lot of drama, and sometimes it doesn’t lead to anything in truth though I needed to feel safe as I have intense trust issues.”
Thabang, on the other hand though, had been single for two years as he navigated what he calls “internships” here and there. These relationship internships were nothing stable or even worth proclaiming until eventually, the need to have a companion came knocking on his door.
“I felt that I’m at an age and stage in my life where I need to have a wife of my own that will in turn breed discipline and reduction on the street life,” he says.
A week before the Married at First Sight (MAFS) experiment, Khumo says she had to break off a situationship that she had been in.
“The reality is that relationships are compromise, two worlds amalgamating to form a beautiful union called marriage that isn’t easy and as the saying goes ‘beauty is pain’ but one thing we can both agree on is our mental health – neither of us wanted to find ourselves mentally bruised due to the relationship or it’s stresses,” they both concur.
Of all the relationships in the first season of MAFS, they are the youngest and by virtue, most fun. But when it goes south, it goes all the way south!
If there’s any moment that they are never going to forget though, it is when they first met at the aisle, with Thabang in a tuxedo and Khumo in her ballgown wedding dress.
While Thabang admits that he instantly thought that she was beautiful and that she matched his descriptions, Khumo jokes to say, she was too focused on how cold the day was although she normally goes for dark men, she didn’t mind having her coffee with a little bit of milk.
Overtime, the two fell head over heels with each other.
“Thabang is patient and gentle, I had never experienced a love that has room for trial and error, he was also very protective from the beginning he’d wake up in the early hours while I got ready (sometimes walk me to the car) and stay on the phone with me till I got to work any chance he got he’d call or text to check up on me – that was rare,” says Khumo.
Thabang also says he fell in love with how well Khumo could express her feelings as well as her emotional intelligence.
“I was always stunned by how well she can express her feelings; her emotional intelligence always stood out for me and as much as I would fight it at the time I knew she was the driving force I probably need. I loved how no matter how intense the situation was she’d always find a way to make me laugh; talking to her wasn’t as hard as I thought, and I had to learn that some of my fears are on my head instead and not even real she listens with love but will not spare you in her responses (a giver of tough love),” he says.
“Somehow through all the fun we were having we started drifting apart and to a certain extent we thought it was Makhumo’s working hours but to our shocker it wasn’t, we were so focused on shooting and trying to figure the unimportant factors out that we forgot about each other; that caused a discord and I saw my wife detach we started hanging in separate rooms and talking less so my husband came into the room one night and we had a discussion all of this unraveled and it wasn’t pretty at all,” they add.
Towards the end of the experiment when they were given the opportunity to still go ahead with their marriage or call it quits, Thabang dropped a bomb on Makhumo.
He exposed details of Makhumo still entertaining her past lover, still giving him hopes of a future together which alluded to her living a double life as a cheat, blindsiding him.
“At no point in the experiment was I suspicious that there could be a third party until she brought it up that only then had she officially cut all ties with the person I felt my uncertainty became worse and my trust shatter. The feeling wasn’t so pleasant, I had an epiphany at the brunch table with the couples, I felt lonely and jealous more especially seeing how everyone else was enjoying the beautiful setting with their partners wishing mine could’ve been next to me.”
“It took a lot of emotions for me to be at that breaking point, looking back at myself I wish I could’ve handled the situation better than I did. I chose the wrong time to address the issues I had with her we always said we will deal with things privately, I did not consider how my actions and behaviour contributed to her actions, she could’ve retaliated but she didn’t if only I had resorted to doing the same,” Thabang adds on what was going through his mind at that moment.
Even though all this went down, he clarifies that Makhumo did not have sexual relations with the ‘third party’ during the experiment.
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Looking back at the experiment, Makhumo says she wishes that she could’ve let Thabang love her more and to the best of his abilities.
“My insecurities always stood in his way; I was so scared that it was all a facade that I forgot to consider that my being nonchalant could easily be translated as not being interested so I’d ignore certain advances.”
The first season of MAFS has officially come to an end with a two-hour special reunion in which most eyes were on Thami and Zithobile.