Category: Lifestyle

Few people talk about money during courtship — it’s not romantic. Even after marriage, money remains an awkward topic. In good times, it is a neglected subject. In troubled times, money can be a point of stress.

While money itself is not often cited in divorce proceedings, it has an uncanny ability to amplify the issues plaguing a difficult relationship.
Explicit and detailed pre-wedding money discussions are uncommon, but silent and implicit discussions in the form of family negotiations, wedding receptions and other elaborate ceremonies can be deafening and have a lasting impact.

The financial stress of a couple’s efforts to recover from costs of the marriage ceremonies can cloud financial arrangements throughout their marriage.

As the newlyweds recover from a lavish wedding or just learn to survive on their own incomes, they confront many questions, such as: Who pays the rent and the EWSA bills? Whose relatives can they support financially? How much can each spend on social drinks with friends? Who should pay for accommodation?

How should they manage differences in salaries? How should domestic responsibilities be shared? How much should they set aside for aging parents? Which schools can they afford for their children? Who gets first dibs in further education expenses they pay for jointly?

If you discussed these and similar questions before you married, you have the Wisdom of Solomon and the courage of David before Goliath. It is a difficult discussion to have because each person wants, especially then, to be seen as generous.

If you still believe all money-related decisions are the sole responsibility of one spouse (traditionally the man), it’s time to wake up. But if dealing with money is still a work-in-progress, as it is for most couples, consider reducing the stress it can cause in your relationship by explicitly discussing the following:

Financial baggage: No two families relate to money in exactly the same way. In one family, money matters were discussed over dinner; in another, money was the sole prerogative of one parent. One might have experienced overt arguments over money; the other absolute silence.

You need to acknowledge your own financial baggage. You can’t change the past, but you can change negative learned behaviuors (e.g., secrecy) and build on positive influences (e.g., a healthy savings culture). Let your partner know what influences your decision-making process.

Full disclosure: Before and during your marriage, commit to fully disclosing ALL your personal assets and liabilities. Tuition fees for a child born out of wedlock are not an off-balance sheet item. Swap bank statements.

Full disclosure includes social insurance contracts. If your eldest siblings paid for your education in full and there is a family expectation that you will do the same for your younger sibling, include it in your disclosure discussions.

Differences in income: Perhaps the most important potential source of stress arises when partners have significant differences in income, with the actual and perceived privileges, rights and obligations this bestows on the higher-earning spouse.

This difference impacts decision-making for major expenses, sharing essential and discretionary costs and the style of social engagements and commitments. Some couples decide that the lesser income should be used for their joint discretionary pleasure or the sole use of the partner earning less.

Others commit that money to a single family expense; yet others share all expenses 50:50 regardless of income. It is more efficient to focus on total household income and treat it all as joint money. Focus on the total income and prepare a single family budget — irrespective of the source of funds.

Joint accounts: There are as many divergent views on joint accounts as there are marriages. Personally, I think that as long as a marriage has a single balance sheet and income statement, the number of accounts is only an administrative convenience.

If a joint account makes it easier to track expenses or qualify for a mortgage, then so be it. For this reason some families choose to pool some or all of their incomes into one account. At a minimum, however, maintaining individual accounts is still important.

Discretionary funds: Irrespective of anything else, each partner needs access to an agreed amount of discretionary funds. In the same way companies operate petty cash accounts, individuals need funds they can utilise as they please — for birthday gifts, random acts of kindness, personal hobbies and other activities that we all need to maintain our individual characters (which attracted our partners in the first place).

Of course, the appropriate amount of discretionary funds is unique to each family, but it should not exceed the percentage of total income set aside for investments and savings. How these funds are used is a different issue.

To what extent should irregular income from business ventures be included in the household finances? If one spouse is doing a side business out of his/her ‘discretionary funds’, where should the proceeds go?

How to handle money within marriage is a topic with no universal rules. Each financial contract between two individuals is unique. Pick the suggestions that work for you and discard the rest.

There is only one marriage that matters and that is yours! Don’t concern yourself with the Bandas next door who just bought their third car; the Chabotas up the road who are going to London on vacation; or the Simasikus across the road who are expanding their house for the third time. Find a formula that works for your marriage and stick with it.

Ps… this article contains general advice about financial discussions in marriages, and is provided without any representations or warranties express or implied; it is not intended to resolve any marital disputes, financial or otherwise.

You must not rely on the content of this article as an alternative to professional marital advice from your pastor or other professional marriage counsellor.

The death of a spouse is one of the most tragic events in a person’s life, often causing an enormous amount of stress andaffecting even the health of the surviving partner.

Other extremely traumatic events, new research finds out, can literally break the heart of an individual.

The research, done at the University Clinic of Rostock in Germany, studied how heart-breaking experiences affect the heart conditions of subjects.

Distressed patients’ hearts force the body to pour out adrenaline and other stress hormones. This narrows the coronary arteries and disrupts normal blood circulation.

As a result, the rest of the body gets less oxygen and people tend to suffer breathlessness, pain and even the loss of consciousness.

The research team said it came across similar heart-related cases, adding that women, especially those who are post-menopausal, are most sensitive to stress hormones, although the specific cause remains unknown.

(more…)

Imagine a 15-year-old girl who thinks she might be pregnant. This was her first sexual experience. It was unplanned. It was even unwanted, but now she thinks she may be pregnant and she doesn’t know what to do.

Now imagine another 15-year-old girl who is on her sixth partner this year. She’s been lucky; she has not got pregnant. She’s thinking of getting tested for STDs. She may be regretting her choices, maybe not.

What is the difference between their motivations and ours? There is really very little difference. The reality is that these girls are simply acting, to the best of their ability, to find a lover of their soul.

We are relational beings. We desire to know and be known. We crave intimacy. We all want to be loved, recognised and accepted.

Teenagers are also looking for acceptance and recognition, and without knowing it, they are looking for the lovers of their souls. They are going about it as they assume they must from the messages they are given from our culture. Sex is everywhere: TV, music, movies. Kids talk about it all the time. The casual way in which it is discussed gives you a clue as to how it is approached. Many of the ways sex is acted out among teenagers would shock you.

What we see are girls trying to fulfill relationship and intimacy needs as well as the need for recognition and acceptance with sex. They are looking for power and equality but do not realise that that is exactly what they are giving away.

Why do you think teenagers have sex? These are the reasons they give: boredom, nothing else to do, a way to pass the time, hormones, bragging right, goal setting, peer pressure, pressure from partner, curiosity, to get it over with, and sometimes, “they think they’re in love.”

They talk about sex, yet what they are most interested in is relationship skills. Most girls want to know how to tell a guy, “no” without hurting his feelings. They also want to know how to deal with the pain of a break-up (because they know a break-up is inevitable).

But most teenagers are verbally sexually active, meaning they talk about sex as if they are participants. And recent studies show that 13-year-olds are physically sexually active.

This is not only true of the “unchurched” crowd. At the our Pregnancy Care Centre, we see girls from the churches. And there are many we do not see. These girls take care of their unwanted pregnancy quickly and quietly so no one else will know. It is their big secret. Many times it is kept from their parents and even their friends. Secrets like that can be very painful and divisive, and can follow generation after generation.

Many girls are desperate for love. They feel they don’t have the option to say, “no.” And with today’s society so focused on sex and many girls so willing to accommodate boys’ requests, they may be right. To refuse to “put out” is to lose the relationship, and with the girls so desiring of relationship they feel to “put out” is their only option.

Sex has lost its sacredness and beauty and has become recreational and casual. It’s gone from being the culminating act of a loving commitment to a precondition, a tryout, for future involvement.

There is a frequent complaint that boys rarely ask girls out anymore. Instead they go to parties, drink, pair off and if the mood suits, have sex. Young women who feel as sexually free as it is possible to feel are still powerless. Girls like boys boast of their sexual experience, but are aware that their reputation have been badly damaged and that the boys lose respect for them.

Some girls meet their intimacy needs by creating their own families. They aren’t meeting it through sex. Sex is just the vehicle. They are using men to have children, and are creating their own “family” so they can love, be loved and be needed. They are creating their own “community.”

Then there is the gang community. When a girl joins a gang, especially in school, she is treated as the lowest on the totem pole. They have to be accountable to the gang and follow the rules. These rules are not for their own good as they would be in a family, but the girls join anyway. For attention and acceptance, these girls find they need to be down and dirty. They laugh at the same jokes, even the sexually degrading ones, and treat sex as a recreation, a conquest, not as an emotional commitment.

If you are a parent of a teenagers, what can you do to help them make wise choices about their sexuality?

Let them know your expectation of them in the area of sexuality. Be very clear about your own values and attitudes. Set definite boundaries for them in the areas of dating and weekend activities. Make them accountable to you as to their whereabouts and activities. Sometimes a lack of opportunity is all the help they need.

Help them see the discrepancies between the media and real life. Use time spent together watching TV or movies to facilitate a discussion on sex and dating.

Learn to listen. Start communicating early and often. Keep discussion open; don’t over or under explain. Avoid lecture format. Show them what good, responsible relationships should be.

Pop diva Lady Gaga has set a social media record by becoming the first person with more than 30 million followers on Twitter.

As of Thursday afternoon, she had 30,030,949 followers on the micro-blogging website, and is adding them at the rate of 30,000 a day, according to the Starcount.com website that monitors celebrity use of social media.

The 26-year-old — real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta — also passed the four million mark on Google+ earlier this week, and is in second place to only Britney Spears on the search giant’s social media platform.

“Paving the way for other stars on social media, Lady Gaga often interacts with her fans and has even set up her own social network for the Little Monsters with thousands of regular users,” commented Starcount.com.

“But it is Twitter that has given her the incredible social popularity that she currently has,” it added in a blog, noting that her Twitter takeover started two years ago when she passed Ashton Kutcher, Barack Obama and Spears.

“Since then, her domination on the network has gone unmatched — she was the first person to reach 10 million and 20 million followers and is keeping up the trend now with 30 million.”

Her nearest rival is teen pop sensation Justin Bieber, with 28.5 million Twitter followers, while Katy Perry has 27.2 million. Rihanna has overtaken Gaga on YouTube and Facebook, but has only 26 million followers on Twitter

On September 29th 2012, Events Africa and Illume Creative Studio present the launch of “A September Affair”, the inaugural dining event series that will feature a different theme every year designed to promote a product or activity to a select group of invited guests.

Guests will enjoy delicious cuisine, entertainment and will be able to sample products on offer—from wines , to clothing and jewelry, music and art.

This year’s theme is ‘Kigali Uncorked’ and the featured product is a collection of South African wines from the Mont Rochelle vineyards in Cape Town ,South Africa.

The Mont Rochelle vineyards were first planted in 1994 and were bought by the late Miko Rwayitare in 2001, making him the first black African to own a wine farm in South Africa.

Along with the wine, invited guests will enjoy a 6- course meal prepared by world class South African chefs, and be entertained by South African jazz musician Nomfundo Xaluva.

Xaluva is a rising star and her qlbum, titled Kusile, will be in stores this September.

“A September Affair” seeks to create an annual event to showcase international, regional and local products, introduce Culinary Tourism to Rwanda, and add to Rwanda’s social calendar of prestigious events.

An American couple Sayli and Jon Gibbs got married on Sept. 1 at Living History Farms in Urbandale in the State of Iowa, in front of close friends and family.

They expected that it would be a romantic day they would never forget. What they did not expect was that the barn they chose would also be the site of a last-minute rally for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.

The couple was told that the president’s event, which started in the morning, may run past schedule, and that the parking lot of the venue would be closed to cars. So Sayli had to walk across the parking lot carrying her wedding gown.

Luckily for the couple, the president left on time, and he also left behind a special gift: a silver tray and a mint julep cup, both with the presidential seal, and a handwritten note that read, “Congratulations on the wedding. Michelle and I wish you a great life together. Barack Obama.”

Neither Sayli nor Jon is a registered Democrat; nonetheless, they were still delighted to receive the gift. Jon Gibbs said, “Love him or hate him, it’s a gift from the president.”

Photographer Loren Paul snapped a picture of the gift, and a friend posted it on Reddit, where it made the front page and received hundreds of comments.

One commenter questioned how the president had gifts like that on hand, writing, “I wonder if the President has a box of emergency presents, just for times like these.”

It’s not clear if the president carries around a stash of gifts, but one thing’s for sure: Sayli and Jon Gibbs will have an incredible wedding story to share for a lifetime.

A SOUTH African woman — who claims to be engaged to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai — has joined Ms Locardia Karimatsenga in seeking to have the premier’s wedding stopped.

Prime Minister Tsvangirai is scheduled to wed his fiancée Ms Elizabeth Macheka tomorrow at Raintree Lodge in Umwinsidale, Harare.

Ms Nosipho Regina Shilubane has instructed her lawyer, Mr Wellington Pasipanodya of Manase and Manase legal practitioners, to file an objection with Harare provincial magistrate Mr Munamato Mutevedzi.

Mr Mutevedzi granted the PM a marriage licence for tomorrow’s wed­ding.

The objection was filed yesterday morning.

Ms Karimatsenga’s lawyers filed their client’s objection papers before the same magistrate on Wednesday after­noon after the High Court dismissed her injunction.

Mr Mutevedzi is expected to deal with both cases today.
Lawyers representing the two women and those representing the PM and Ms Macheka briefly appeared before Mr Mutevedzi in his chambers at the Harare Magistrates’ Courts yes­terday.

The matter was adjourned to today to allow lawyers for the PM, Mr Inno­cent Chagonda and Mr Selby Hwacha, to study the objection papers.

Ms Shilubane claims to be engaged for marriage and that she was shocked to learn of the PM’s scheduled wed­ding.

In her affidavit, Ms Shilubane claims she first met the PM on September 5, 2009 at Monte Cassino Shopping Cen­tre in Johannesburg after being intro­duced to him by Pastor Lazarus Murir­itirwa of the Gospel Assembly Church.

The pastor, Ms Shilubane said, invited her to a hotel room where Tsvangirai was booked, on the pretext that his friend wanted to see her.

“When we were introduced at the hotel room, he (Tsvangirai) asked his pastor and his son Edwin Tsvangirai to give us some privacy and we remained the two of us in the hotel room.”

While in the room, the PM report­edly told the woman he was a widower looking for someone to marry.

He reportedly proposed to Ms Shilubane.
The woman claims she was given a business card and the following num­bers for communication —0027718972979, 00263772383532 and 00263772383593.

The PM allegedly invited the woman to Zimbabwe and she stayed at Pastor Muriritirwa’s house in Borrowdale, Harare.

Ms Shilubane said the PM bought her an air ticket for the trip to Zim­babwe.

She claims that he would visit her at the pastor’s house where they had their first sexual encounter on September 19, 2009.

“After my first visit, I returned to South Africa and he phoned me and asked me where I was staying.

“I advised him that I was staying in Yeoville and he expressed disgust say­ing ‘how can you stay in that hell hole; you need to get a nicer place in a loca­tion where I can come and see you in an uptown area’.

“I looked for a place and I found a townhouse in a place called Buccleuch in Johannesburg North near Sandton at No.53 Northfields, Fife Street, Buc­cleuch.

“R13 000 were deposited into my Standard Bank Account Number 026640473 by Morgan. I paid for the place and moved into the new place at the end of November 2009,” she said.

On December 28, 2009, Mr Tsvangi­rai reportedly met Ms Shilubane at OR Tambo Airport in the company of his twin children Millicent and Vincent and they proceeded to Seychelles for a holiday.

Tickets for the trip were pur­chased through Ms Zodwa Mtunzi of Traverse Travel Agency.

“We were intimate throughout the holiday period (12 days) and we always had unprotected sex as he had asked me to go on family planning medica­tion.

“He said he did not want to have anymore children,” said Ms Shilubane.
“Whenever he went to a foreign country, he would pass by South Africa and I would go to whichever hotel he would be staying.

“We would be intimate and make love two or three times on each occa­sion,” she said.

On November 19, 2010, Ms Shilubane claims she followed the PM to Gaborone, Botswana, where he said “he was distressing, and he missed me and wanted to make love to me”.

Ms Shilubane said she eagerly fol­lowed the PM and they “stayed together at his hotel making love”.

It is indicated in the court papers that the PM spent another two weeks in Singapore with Ms Shilubane and photographs were taken during the holidays.

The holiday that Ms Shilubane called “love cruise” was on a boat called “Leg­end of the Seas”.

The PM allegedly visited the woman in January last year in South Africa say­ing he was now serious about the rela­tionship and wanted “to throw her in the kitchen”.

During the visit, he had a motorcade and Ms Shilubane said at times PM Tsvangirai would visit in South African Police Services motorcade vehicles.

He asked to marry Ms Shilubane, which proposal was accepted and he promised her a wedding ceremony in Zimbabwe.

The PM, according to the papers, promised to talk to the pastor who would make the wedding arrange­ments before promising the woman’s children better education and a house.

Ms Shilubane said in January this year, her family members convened a meeting and waited for the PM to come and pay lobola and negotiations for a customary wedding ceremony, but he did not turn up.

PM Tsvangirai, Ms Shilubane claims in her papers, said he could not attend the meeting due to some Government commitments.
He had reset the customary wedding date for December 2012.

While she was expecting a custom­ary wedding in December, Ms Shilubane said she was shocked to hear of the planned wedding to Ms Macheka.

Herald