Couple name: Nabihah and Ziyaad Plaatjes
When did you meet? At the end of 2004 in university (in Durban, UKZN). It was a Friday, after the congregational Friday prayers, I was with my friend walking towards my car to get my books and go back to class, but I had an “old-ish” type of car which had to be open with the key in the door, but now and again, it would put up some struggles so that particular day and time, it struggled. I turned around searching to find someone whom I know to open the troublesome door… and then our eyes met.
He walked towards me… I thought it was fate (his friend whom he was walking with, happened to be a relative of my friend – but Ziyaad swears that he would have come to be my knight in shining armour to “rescue me” even if he was walking alone 😉 haha). I kept thinking he was cute and made some lame jokes as he tried to open the car. It opened, I thanked him, he smiled with those adorable dimples and left.
A few days later, we met again and he and I spent the entire time in deep conversations.
We became occasional friends (per chance meet-ups) leading to an actual friendship up until 2008, where we met again in Johannesburg and thereafter felt a deep connection and decided to go out. At the end of September in 2009, we got married…
Describe your relationship? Praise to The Almighty, we have a strong bond and that’s probably due to our friendship. We’re each others best friend 😜 We know when to take things seriously, but most often, find everything a joke and we’re comfortable in each others presence, so much so that we actually decided to start a business together in 2015 and have been running it ever since (we’ve worked together since 2009 in a “family-type” of business so in all honesty, it wasn’t a very new concept for us).
Best and worst moments together, and how you celebrated/overcame those? Our best moment and worst moment together was when our son Isa was born. He has been the love of our lives since he was born and has brought through much pleasure but he’s our first child (and only child at the moment) and we had no clue on anything: on how to raise him, on what to do and how to manage given our financial situation… We just had to work together and through that. We learnt together and we’re constantly learning everyday how to work through the hurdles that life throws at us. There will always be room for improvement and opportunities to learn and grow, as long as you’re learning together and learning from each other as well.
Your golden key advice to share that other couples to take in? The Three C’s 😊:
Communication – always be open and speak to each other about everything
Compromise – learn to pick your battles
Compassion – try to see why the other is acting the way they do, put yourself in their shoes or go deeper and find out. We are all dealing with issues and even married couples have things that bother them that don’t necessarily stem from the other spouse.
What’s the one thing you are obsessed with about your partner?
Me: his brain, his faith and his dimples 😊
Ziyaad: I’m obsessed with everything about her from the way she looks to her drive and passion in the way she does and gets things done. But what I am most obsessed about is the way she loves me and takes care of me, especially when I have man flu😬
This is too lovely!
You make us sound so cute! 😊😊
Hahaha you already are