Cover Story –Keeping Up With The Mokweles
They are a couple often described as #MarriageGoals, yet they insist the formula that has cushioned their love for almost two decades is laughter and constantly nurturing their friendship
The truth about real-life relationships is that, unlike what we’re sold in fairytales, happily-ever-after isn’t always guaranteed. Apparently, the secret to a successful relationship is to operate like a scale. When one partner goes through a phase of being ‘disinvested’ in the relationship due to life events, the other puts in the work (and vice versa) to keep the love scale in equilibrium. Even though they’re fully aware of it, Kaya FM on-air personalities and entrepreneurs Thabo, aka Tbose, and Mapaseka Mokwele, are a tad uncomfortable with being described as #MarriageGoals, a popular social media hashtag suggesting that a couple’s union is the closest thing to perfection, therefore rendering it challenge-free. In fact, the first thing they caution me about prior to our two-hour sit-down at Signature Restaurant in Morningside, is that their story is boring because they don’t conform to industry standards. Tbose insisted on this lavish restaurant, saying he knows there will be plenty vegetarian and pescatarian options for his wife to choose from, and being claustrophobic himself, it would offer the perfect ambience for an interview.
He calls her Cheri Ya Jita on social media, and she alternates between calling him ‘Love’ and ‘Mokwele’. Theirs is a love story that dates back to 1999 when Tbose first spotted Mapaseka rocking an open-front Jennifer Lopez-inspired blue number, in a daily newspaper. And as cupid’s army would have it, he met her in person at Thrupps restaurant in Sandton when she was on a girls’ night out. Recounting the melt-your-heart details of how they got to be here, 17 years later, the pair finish each other’s sentences and fill in details where the other seems to have forgotten. “That night when I met her in person, she was on her phone as usual, but at least she was polite enough to greet our table,” Tbose recalls, with a hint of sarcasm in his tone. “Really,” says Mapaseka, protesting to her hubby’s accusation. She continues: “Mokwele, do you still remember what I was wearing?” Tbose responds: “I don’t. But I remember seeing your legs and going, ‘Wow, this is a babe!’” According to Tbose, the strategy, when pursuing a beautiful woman like Mapaseka, is not to get carried away and profess your love right away. “You do the complete opposite,” he says.
Seven days after their first official date — and it didn’t happen overnight, by the way — Tbose decided to set the record straight. “But you know you’re going to be Mapaseka Mokwele someday, right? In fact, you’re the mother of my kids,” said a smitten Tbose in a lengthy text message. Mapaseka mockingly reiterates that he made this admission in just seven days. “A guy who’s just met you making such strong declarations and proposing was scary so I ran away! I literally pulled a disappearing act for six months,” Mapaseka recalls.
Tbose defends his strategy: “I wasn’t proposing, I was giving you the vision.” Following Mapaseka’s six-month hiatus, Tbose gave Mapaseka a call one day (from a private number), begged her not to hang up, and said he just wanted them to be friends because he’d already moved on. What she didn’t know was that the ‘moved-on’ part was another strategic move on Tbose’s part. “Later that evening after our call, I pondered over our conversation and found myself thinking, ‘What does this guy mean he’s moved on. Didn’t he say I was the mother of his children?’” Mapaseka pulled a few strategic tricks, herself, which saw them get married six months later. “We didn’t start dating immediately, but I remember a Metro FM charity drive trip to Durban, on 19 October 2001, was what made things official for us,” she shares.
LOVE AND FAME
The Mokweles started working in entertainment at a time when the culture of tabloid media was also taking off. Their 2001 wedding ceremonies, which were meant
to be intimate friends and family type of affairs, were ambushed and sprawled all over Sunday papers. Among the many misleading headlines was, “Tbose marries his high school sweetheart”. Excited family members made it a point to collect the street posters advertising news of the wedding coverage in the papers and treated those as souvenirs — incidents that had the couple rolling their eyes with confusion. “We work in the industry but we don’t live the industry — that’s just our personality types — so it was weird to read about ourselves in the papers,” Mapaseka explains. She continues: “I guess everybody outside of us might have liked the attention, but we just thought it was weird! Our families thought we were crazy for being upset that our wedding was of news interest.”
The couple is adamant about one thing – theirs is a love story that doesn’t entertain rumours. They confront challenges head on, and their union is rooted in laughter and friendship. Unpacking how they usually handle rumours, the pair says it usually starts with them looking at each other, followed by a loud crackle. Mapaseka shares an incident where someone kept hounding Tbose on Facebook with messages about how Mapaseka should leave her husband alone. “Tbose gave me a sarcastic look and said, ‘He motho wa Modimo, o nko kgaogane le batho ba batho. Le wena o busy maan!’ and proceeded to relay the content of the message.” It actually turned out that the accuser had seen Mapaseka’s picture used as a Whatsapp display picture by a fan who had been conversing with her husband and so assumed that the radio personality was the guilty party. And just like that, an incident that could have spelled the end of their marriage was added to their collection of private jokes. But to get to that point where you’re no longer fazed by rumours as a couple, it means you have built a solid foundation which is built on trust, friendship and openness, Tbose points out. “The openness and friendship is what helps sustain our marriage. I have conversations with my buddy and the last thing I need is judgement, but an ear,” he adds. “Those incidents where we’re wrongfully accused or where fake stories are written about us, have helped us get to this point. There’s nothing as painful as being wrongfully judged by your partner for something you didn’t do,” Mapaseka says.
KEEPING IT REAL
Just recently, someone asked Mapaseka how big her Instagram following is. Oblivious to social media numbers being the new 21st century currency, she responded with an innocent, “I don’t know!”
“The penny only dropped when our manager pointed out that our social media platforms could be a possible revenue stream. We prefer to live away from the glaring lights of fame with friends whom we’ve known almost all our lives. We choose to be authentic, even though authenticity sometimes is mistaken for weakness. The minute you change who you are, that’s it, forget it,” says Mapaseka before divulging one of the things that attracted her to her hubby. While still dating, she and Tbose would sit and, at no point, talk about the industry — something that tugged at her heartstrings. “I would sit by myself and think, ‘I hope he’s not playing mind games with me.’ The fact that I’d met another me was just too surreal. There was never a discussion about us not living according to industry standards. It just happened on its own. It’s who we are and it has always come naturally to us. That people are interested in our lives still comes as a bit of a shock,” she explains.
Tbose jumps in to share how Mapaseka gets perturbed by the number of people whose jaws drop when they see her on the Gautrain. A near-fatal car accident in February 2017 left Mapaseka with a phobia of driving longer distances and, as a result, she now prefers the ease of commuting via public transport. She doesn’t mind driving shorter distances within the vicinity of their home, but only if weather conditions are favourable. “I always go home to tell Mokwele that I got another one of those of ‘you use the Gautrain’ questions today and I genuinely don’t get what the big deal is,” she chuckles.
Besides having found a grounding spiritual home at the Zion Christian Church, Mapaseka says one of the things they enjoy about the environment is that there’s no special chair set aside for the famous Mokweles. It’s also here where they get to refuel their marriage and relationship. “It’s a space where we get to be ourselves. If there’s no room for us to sit, we sit on the floor like everyone else,” she enthuses.
PARENTING WITH A PURPOSE
Tbose believes that a household with no vision makes role-playing between the members difficult and the unit dysfunctional. Their first vision is to grow old together. “Secondly, let’s be who God intended for us to be, and this includes opening doors and helping our children live up to God’s highest vision for them,” says Tbose. Their vision is evident in the little things, like Tbose asking his wife to pray before we dive into our starters, as well as how fondly they speak of their hopes and dreams for their five children. Of the two of them, he’s the stricter parent and she’s more laidback, but what matters to them is that they get along with their children, namely Raymond (27) who is a process engineer, Palesa (22) a CA in the making, while Thabo (15), Lefika (8) and Kano (5) are still in school. “Our children are also homebodies who’d rather be home than anywhere else,” Mapaseka shares. “Half the time we’re told to tell kids to do things a certain way, but kids don’t learn that way. They need to see you doing things in order for them to follow suit. For instance, they know that leaving the house for us means
There was never a discussion about us not living according to industry standards...It’s who we are and it has always come naturally to us.
we’re going to work otherwise it’s family time. So, they also want to go to school and be home with us — and the same goes for studying. What we do in our spare time has become everyone’s way of life,” Mapaseka says of their parenting mantra. Tbose steps in to unpack another parenting philosophy that they don’t compromise on. “If you’re not better than your parents, you have failed and I understand that it’s a bit of a tough ask. I’m going for my PhD, so how do I expect my kids to top that? There are other aspects of my life that they can do better in, hands down. As it stands, the firstborn Raymond has far surpassed me. He’s 27 with no child, yet I fathered him at 17,” Tbose reflects.
Their second biggest parenting philosophy is to encourage their cubs to see the world, because travelling is the best educator, they believe. Tbose attributes their family’s passion for travelling to Mapaseka, whereas he’s more into travelling for a particular reason.
“Mapaseka will sit in a plane for more than ten hours just so she can be in another country and come back remarking what a better place the world is. I’m very objective-driven with my travels — I’m drawn to places with a rich history. For the first time, however, I have found a city that I feel like I could visit even when I’m broke and that’s Dubai. That city is inspiring,” Tbose adds. Mapaseka exclaims that the entire world is her dream destination, saying she has no one place in the world that resonates with her.
“We did Singapore with the kids in January last year and they loved it. Cuba, Italy and Paris are next on our bucket list,” they enthuse.
GIVING OF THEMSELVES
The Mokweles have scores of couples and individuals who look up to them as a beacon of #BlackLove, yet they reiterate that they are not #MarriageGoals. “The problem with viewing something as perfect is that you don’t give it room to just be, and that’s the pressure we feel. We’ve learnt to immediately sober up from being seen as the perfect couple and live our lives in a carefree manner,” says Tbose. “We’re also very quick to tell people that our marriage is no scene from The Bold and The Beautiful. We fight, we argue and perhaps the only difference is in how we resolve our issues. We have learnt to talk and not scream. And we’re both clear of the goal being to always get through our issues,” Mapaseka explains.
She believes the idealisation of their marriage is based on their history of getting married, divorcing and reconciling, which people are somehow encouraged by. Some go as far as seeking relationship counsel on their respective Kaya FM shows, while some bombard their social media inboxes with requests. Based on this, the pair decided to launch the Y U 4 Me Couples seminars — a relationship coaching session where the Mokweles get to kill thousands of these requests with one stone.
“The ideal was to have one seminar every quarter, but because it’s capital intensive, it needs the backing of a sponsor,” Tbose says. Mapaseka adds that they don’t intend making financial gains from the events. “We had so many people who would ask us to help them work through their marital issues, and that’s another reason why I did my Masters in the field of coaching. I wasn’t going to coach people when I didn’t have the basics,” Mapaseka says.
In a typical Y U 4 Me seminar, couples openly share their stories and attendees chirp in to help resolve the issues. “The seminar’s an open forum and is definitely not about attending to hear Mapaseka and Thabo speak. Before delving into whatever theme we’ve prepared for the day, we start with an opening line where we urge couples to raise their concerns. We also make it a point to reassure the couples that the seminar is a safe space,” Tbose explains.
He continues: “It takes a village to raise a child, right? Now, take that into a relationship context. If you’re in the company of likeminded people who want to see you build a strong and healthy relationship, they won’t be shy to share their own stories and the type of wisdom that has stood their relationships in good stead.” For all the effort that goes into these seminars, hearing a couple commend them for helping save their marriage is all the payment they’ll ever need, Mapaseka reaffirms.
To avoid coming across as a perfect couple, the Mokweles also share whatever troubles they have endured and how they overcame them.
The couple cite co-habiting as one of the most challenging aspects of a marriage because both parties come with different values and expectations. To make things work, you both have to make peace with the other’s inborn habits. Mapaseka shares how, for instance, Tbose is a neat freak with terrible OCD whereas she’s OCD, yet chilled and prefers things done a certain way.
“He used to frustrate my family because we’d have a gathering at our house, and he’d be that guy walking around with a refuse bag collecting garbage and wiping surfaces. When he leaves the bathroom, you would swear that a professional cleaning service sneaked in to clean the bath on his behalf,” Mapaseka says, in between chuckles.
“I’m so pedantic about keeping cars clean that I will wait for her to return from her travels so I can preach to her about the slips lying around in the car,” Tbose says.
To avoid petty fights caused by co-habiting differences, they have put rules in place about who does what. Tbose doesn’t ever need to worry about food because that’s Mapaseka’s department, and she doesn’t need to ever worry about setting foot at a car wash or garage because he takes care of that. “I love that he’s a protector and doer. I never worry about a bad month. I just look at him and all becomes sorted,” she beams.
We’ve learnt to immediately sober up from being seen as the perfect couple and live our lives in a carefree way. We fight and we argue.
WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
They, once again, bring up the subject of how boring they are, saying their favourite pasttime involves lazing about the house, even if it’s in complete silence. In fact, the Mokweles already have their ultimate old-age plan thoroughly mapped out and it includes living on a farm out in the northern parts of the country. They don’t plan to retire per se, saying that retirement has a way of shrivelling one’s mind.
“We want to wake up early, do our chores on the farm and spend the rest of the day relaxing,” they both enthuse.
She plans to read lots of books in retirement, while he is anticipating a career in academia, what with his Masters of Management in Strategic Communication obtained from the University of the Witwatersrand’s Business School in July last year.
“He’s currently preparing for his PhD,” beams Mapaseka before adding that she too will be completing her Masters of Management in Business Management Coaching soon. “See why we say we’re boring,” she says, wrapping up the subject.
With all the studying and the requirements of parenting and a demanding life in entertainment, how do the Mokweles nurture their love and all other family affairs?
Their quality time is quite fluid, says Mapaseka, adding that the only time they are conscious about spending time together is on Fridays — which happens to be both their off day. Mapaseka lauds her husband as being organised, which then helps everything fall into place.
“When it comes to studying, for instance, Mokwele will stay up and study until 7am when the children leave for school. Shame, my baby is an insomniac and hardly sleeps. I, on the other hand, am pressure and deadline driven,” Mapaseka says.
They say falling in love is easy, but choosing to stay in love is the hard part.
When it comes to relationship dynamics, Tbose believes that it’s each party’s responsibility to raise a flag should they feel that there is a void of sorts. To nurture their love, the Mokweles still call each other randomly during the day, laugh a lot and don’t take quality time for granted.