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Dr Masimba Mavaza

If you and your partner always love each other irrespective of the land or sea between you, then this could be a sign of true love in a long-distance relationship. 

Or your partner calls you to know whether or not you are doing good or inquire on your health. 

Is this true love still existing or is it now like a scene from a hilarious comedy? 

Long-distance partners still exist.

The distance tends to make them less “personal”, but by maintaining frequent and open lines of communication and by fostering trust and positive emotions, it is possible for a long distance relationship to work, even long-term.  

But has it worked for many Zimbabweans who are overseas or in regional countries?

To some people, the distance would drive them apart, literally. 

But some couples in long-distance relationships actually develop stronger, more intimate bonds than those who are close to each other.

Going abroad can be advantageous in terms of income and career opportunities.

However, most people moved there, leaving behind their partners and this has led to disintegration of relationships. 

Love will travel as far as you let it. It has no limits, but the distance in time stretches the limit. 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it surely makes the rest of you lonely. That loneliness has been a heavy cost for many unions. 

Almost all Zimbabwean couples who were separated by relocation have divorced or at least cheated on each other. 

That farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last glance of love which becomes the sharpest pang of sorrow was the last for many affairs which blossomed only to whither in the face of distance. 

Couples separated, thus have increasingly found it difficult to ‘patiently’ wait for their partners to join them. 

And many have ended up finding comfort in other people’s arms despite being married and having vowed to be faithful to their partners.

Loneliness is one thing that strikes hard on newcomers.

 People suddenly find themselves in a permissive society with ‘freedoms’ that lead our brothers and sisters to quickly forsake their vows. 

One way or another, news of the shenanigans filters to the affected partners. Messages and pictures of cheating partners are being sent from the United Kingdom to Zimbabwe and vice versa. 

While people are apart, technology has ensured that activities by partners in different parts of the world are easily known.

As contraries are known by contraries, so is the delights of presence best known by the torments of absence. 

One carries another’s heart with him, he carries it in his heart. So when the heart breaks all the hearts suffer. 

Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great. 

According to Energy, a social analyst, most of those affected are young couples.

“Young couples who do not come to the UK together end up getting divorced if they live apart for a long time,” he said.

Psychologist George Nyathi said the divorce rate among Zimbabweans with partners abroad was frightening.

Michelle from Luton said there is always mistrust when long distance partners meet.

“The day my husband of 10 years came to the UK to join me after five years, I demanded that he used a condom during intimacy. I did not know what he was up to in Zimbabwe,” she said.

“We were now total strangers; our common ground – love – was gone.”

 Munya from Leicester said he ended up cohabiting in the UK.

“I came to the UK and my wife stayed behind in Zimbabwe and in the two years that I was not with her, I ended up co-habiting with another woman from home. 

“Eventually, this filtered to my wife back home who demanded a divorce.”

 Tapiwa Mazanhi, a marriage counsellor, said it was best for partners to be always together.

“It is wise that married couples go abroad together. There are many temptations and the loneliness coming from being in a foreign land may force separated couples to indulge in activities detrimental to their relationship,” said Mazanhi.

Social geographer Rumbidzai Nyahwedegwe, who carried out a mapping exercise of long-distance lovers and relationships, concluded that while incomes and careers got a boost in the Diaspora, relationships suffered.

Herbert Kawadza, a love specialist said: “Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches. Distance is not for the fearful, it’s for the bold. It’s for those who are willing to spend a lot of time alone in exchange for a little time with the one they love. 

“It’s for those who know a good thing when they see it, even if they don’t see it nearly enough. If all is followed, then there will be no break up.” 

Diaspora needs men who can say: “I fell in love with her when we were together, then fell deeper in love with her in the years we were apart.”  

The major reason which makes these relationship break is loneliness. 

But nothing makes a room feel emptier than wanting someone in it.

The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again, but where you are not sure when the partner is coming back, it becomes a disaster. 

“Your absence has not taught me how to be alone; it has merely shown me that when together we cast a single shadow on the wall,” Doug Fetherling commented. The art of love is largely the art of persistence, but our generation is dry. Out of mind, out of sight. 

Those with a patriarchal leaning argue that in the cases where the women made it first to the UK, the men became disempowered and were no longer appealing to the ‘empowered’ women.

“Women who came to the UK first and made money no longer respected the husbands left back home,” said Tendai Nyahumwe.

 “And the ‘freedoms’ they experienced here turned them into ‘rebels’. The most important thing for people coming here is not to forget their culture and ways. There are new experiences here that will destroy relationships if indulged. People just have to respect their partners and marriage vows.” 

Diaspora needs to realise that love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age. 

Steve Morabili commented: “I believe in the immeasurable power of love; that true love can endure any circumstance and reach across any distance. Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it. 

“As humanity we look forward to a day when one says; “We were together even when we were apart”. If you listen to the wind very carefully, you’ll be able to hear me whisper my love for you. 

“Missing someone is a part of loving them. If you’re never apart, you’ll never really know how strong your love is. True love knows no distance; it hath no continent; its eyes are for the stars. Distance between two people is inconsequential when their souls are united.”

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