Kind Richard ‘steals’ Chilinda’s wife
By Charles Musonda
SALINANI Chilinda and Catherine Matimba have gone separate ways after six years in marriage after she admitted that she had found another man who was helping her with the welfare of the couple’s three children. Chilinda, 30, and Matimba, 25, both of Garden Compound, Lusaka, got married in 2020 after he ‘damaged’ her.
The last made love two weeks before they differed when Chilinda found a recording of the phone conversation between Matimba and her boyfriend only identified as Richard in which she was heard telling him that she did not know what to do with Chilinda because he had held on to her despite efforts by her and her family to push for divorce.
“I don’t know what to do with this man. It will be very nice to divorce him. He likes using charms. Right now I’m just eating sweet potatoes for breakfast. I’ll take him to police if he dares to beat me,” Matimba was heard saying in the recording played via Bluetooth on a portable radio.
In cross examination after the two recordings were played, Matimba said she did not have questions for Chilinda because he had presented his evidence well.
In her statement, Matimba told Matero Local Court senior magistrate Harriet Mulenga that for the first three months in their marriage Chilinda would bring money home but later stopped and started hiding it from her.
She said Chilinda started sleeping out with girlfriends whom he used to talk to on the phone in her presence.
She said when he was transferred to work from Eastern Province, he became worse as he started coming home late at night and reached the extent of failing to pay rent.
Matimba said she met Richard when they were on separation with Chilinda but described their relationship as a non-adulterous affair as Richard just helped as a philanthropist.
She said she still loved Chilinda but he kept a distance from her when he had money.
Chilinda had secretly installed a memory card in her phone and put it on auto recording.
Matimba said she was ready to reconcile with him only if he was ready to change his behaviour.
But in her judgment, magistrate Mulenga noted that the two could not live together because Matimba seemed to be more advanced and that she still had market due to her age.
She warned her that some people were just there to destroy other people’s marriages and it seemed to the court she was not ready to keep her marriage.
But she granted them divorce without compensation.
