Springbok World Cup winning captain, Siya Kolisi, recently got real about the struggles during the early days of his relationship with his wife, Rachel.
In an interview with Welsh rugby star, Dan Biggar, for the Daily Mail, Siya opened up about the days of his childhood and the difficult circumstances he faced growing up in Zwide in Gqeberha.
“In the township, your parents are not watching you every day. Adults do things in front of children that children shouldn’t see. Smoking, drinking, hearing people being intimate in your house.
‘We started smoking and drinking when I was still a kid. Me and my friends would put money in together and stuff was cheap. A couple of my friends went the other way and I started going to rugby training.
Siya also revealed he and Rachel were left with no choice but to turn to marriage counselling due to Siya not knowing how to speak, The Citizen reported.
I had to go to marriage counselling because I couldn’t give everything to my wife; because my heart was so hard and I didn’t know how to speak,” Siya said in the personal interview.
In my community you see it so many times that it becomes normal. That’s not good, being immune to things like that. If a man and a woman argued, then it would end up in a fight, because men don’t really speak,” he explained.
“In my late 20s, I started talking to someone and the first time I went, she said: ‘You are damaged in every level. The stuff that you saw is not normal’.”
Things clearly worked for the best as the Kolisi family now live happily together in France, with their two kids, Nicholas (9) and Keziah (6).
Compiled by Matthew Petersen
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