This December is their first Christmas as a married couple.
Newlyweds Dr. Musa Mthombeni and former Miss South Africa wife Liesl Laurie Mthombeni plan to do nothing but spend time enjoying the honeymoon phase of their union.
Speaking to Drum, Musa says this festive season is theirs to enjoy together.
It’s their first Christmas as a married couple.
“We are planning absolutely nothing but spending time together with our families and taking time out,” Musa says.
They have been married for almost four months and dating for over a year and they couldn’t be happier.
Musa and Liesl kept their relationship under wraps for more than a year and announced their engagement on 27 June 2021. Soon after, they hosted a traditional wedding ceremony followed by a white wedding ceremony dressed by Frank Bespoke, and Liesl by The Bridal Boutique.
“Marrying Liesl is one of the best things to ever happen to me. Words fail me,” he shared on social media. The couple tells Drum that their union has been nothing but delightful. “It’s been blissful,” Liesl says.
“We are very happy. The past months that we have been married and the past year and a bit we have been dating has been absolutely amazing. It is a great journey with a life partner that I am grateful for every day. I wake up in the morning and I am filled with gratitude, we both feel the same way,” Musa adds.
Finishing off each other’s sentences and in matching clothes, they say their marriage is almost like a fairy-tale, like the movies.
“We are excited for our future together,” Musa adds.
They have received criticism in the past on social media but that does not bother them. “A lot of people put negative on a pedestal alongside positive, and in our lives, we believe negative is way down in the list of positives. Negativity does not affect our life. We stay true to who we love and what we want for our future and believe in. Should anything negative come, we will deal with it and filter it out.”
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Still enjoying each other’s company, Liesl and Musa want to explore, travel, and still enjoy their marriage before planning to have children in the future.
“Maybe 10 years or more, 15, 30 years or more, you can go on,” Musa jokes.
“We have our personal relationship goals and targets of what we would like to achieve and starting a family is definitely one of them. We have ideals, goals, and family is one thing that is on our mind, at some point in the future,” he adds.
This year they were part of the #NoExcuse campaign that tackled issues of gender-based violence. The campaign engaged celebrity power couples to shine the spotlight on intimate partner violence. Before deciding to get married, they wanted to make sure they made the right decision.
“Ultimately, it’s not about looking at what is happening in other relationships and trying to emulate a different thing but it's about building ours as it should be,” Liesl says.
“What we do every day is make our partnership and relationship an idealistic space work for us. We are not walking around taking notes to see who has done what in the past but what are we doing to grow our relationship,” she adds.
“In this relationship, it’s God, Musa, and myself, all the outside factors do not bar anything in our relationship,“ she adds.
In their bachelor and bachelorette days, they did what they wanted in their own time and marriage has taught them to be accountable for each other.
“There’s nothing explicitly different that has changed in the way we live,” Musa says.
“But marriage comes with a responsibility. I used to joke about this in the past and say I won’t marry someone’s daughter until I have what I have. I vowed not to bring someone’s daughter into my poverty. That was my theory. But there is just a natural responsibility that comes with being married to check in on each other," Musa says.
"We are those types of people anyway; we chat all the time and speak throughout the day. But for me, it’s about being conscious of the fact that you are someone else’s. So I must be considerate towards the feelings of my partner, what my partner may think, feel when they see me doing something. To remind yourself that you appreciate the other person and continue to love them. It’s a daily decision that I needed to make,” he adds.
Liesl says she has not changed a single thing to try and be a good wife.
“I have remained true to myself and who I am. I walked into this relationship very disciplined because I had already healed, so there was not much to change about myself and my habits,” she says.
“Change is a harsh word and walking into marriage; I didn’t change, but I accommodated spaces and it’s frivolous small things like what he likes to eat and when he likes to eat because we are in a partnership.”
The couple says when they met, they instantly clicked.
“We are the kind of couple that came together and we matched,” Liesl says.
“No one had to take away or break down a pillar or change something about themselves to mold into what was already being there. We just enjoy each other’s spaces 24/7,” she adds.
Musa jokes about people asking how they cope with spending so much time together.
“We enjoy being together. And the worst thing I don’t do is not close doors of cabinets. I’ve made a conscious decision to work on that. But it's like being with anyone, like living with your best friend, you have to learn each other’s habits in order to live in peace,” he says.
