Their love started with an Instagram post

Love has been called so many names but Destiny Sanayian Aheri’s definition of love is that it is a deep, genuine, unconditional feelings of care and respect for another person, total acceptance of them; flaws and all. It has not changed. Love makes meaning to her because of her boyfriend, Derekford Mugumisa, a television personality. She is a social worker.
“Destiny is simply my best friend. She is a very intelligent and supportive person, a confidant. She is also understanding, sometimes a little too understanding she makes excuses for people, or, as she prefers to see it, looks at the other side of the story. She is so amazingly beautiful and natural and as I have learnt over the past three or so months, a great mother to our daughter,” Mugumisa describes his partner.

How they met
The two lovers met in a rather unconventional way. They were tagged in the same Instagram post and her username caught his eye, enough to get him to send her a direct message.
The conversation they had largely left him intrigued about her and he developed a yearning to know her better. He had gone through her profile and picked out her love for nature, her seeming intellect and humour with how she picked her captions.
She was down-to-earth.

The first time he met her physically, he was confident she was the lady he wanted to commit to. The rest has been a rollercoaster of formalities and applying realities to his imaginations of what they can be as companions.
On the other hand, Destiny’s first impression was that Derekford was a very cocky man with a good sense of humour, which drew her to him. The future awaited them. And the decision to commit to him was one of the easiest decisions she has ever made. “There is a perfect person out there for everyone and he was and is in many ways perfect for me; so that was not hard,” she says.

A good father
The duo has memories to fall back on. They often do recaps of the beginnings of their relationship during which they share on things the two did for each other in that time that they loved and those that rubbed them the wrong way.
“I was so sure she was the one. There and then, I decided I was going all in; love her purely, make her my first priority. From then on, everything I needed to do to prove my love to her came naturally and I can tell you this is very rewarding. It warms my heart just knowing how much I am capable of loving someone satisfactorily,” Mugumisa says.

The couple have a baby and when Aheri thought she could not love him more, their daughter was born. Her birth brought out a side of him she had not known. “He is an amazing father and watching him interact with our little girl melts my heart every time. I love him more every day because I love him on behalf of our daughter too. Going through the challenges of pregnancy and childbirth together also strengthened our bond and we could not be more grateful,” she explains.

And as a media personality, his work comes with a lot of work pressure but when he gets free days, he strictly spends them with his family. “It has got to be a very huge commitment that gets to alter that. I try to spend as much time as possible with Destiny and our daughter as we have built our magical relationship around bonding and spending time together, many times playing around and cracking jokes,” he says.

Why it works
“I feel it was all about how we chose to start this relationship. We both agreed it was long-term and we were not just trying it out to see what happened. With that in mind, we went on a journey to completely open up to each other and answer the hard questions of our past if any, and lay out our expectations,” he says.

Mugumisa adds that it helped them understand each other even better really quickly and minimised suspense. One other thing the couple agreed upon was that they would always talk about each and everything, however small. That way, they minimise tiny issues piling up and causing blowouts.

Advice
Aheri’s advice and tip about commitment in a relationship is if two people are ready to commit, they should go for it and give it 100 per cent. “Discuss the dos and don’ts of your relationship and live by them. However, if either one of you is not ready, it is not worth the heartache,” she adds.

As lovers, Aheri and Mugumisa do many things together. “Some of our best times have been had in the kitchen as we love to cook together. It gives us time to talk and play around a little. We also do movie nights quite often. “Before Desire came, we did the cinema once in a while, went out on dates as well as double-dates with my boy Calvin da Entertainer & his wife Amanda. Our major plan right now is getting married,” Mugumisa shares.

Unconditional love
“I was so sure she was the one. There and then, I decided I was going all in; love her purely, make her my first priority. From then on, everything I needed to do to prove my love to her came naturally and I can tell you this is very rewarding. It warms my heart just knowing how much I am capable of loving someone satisfactorily,” Derekford Mugumisa says.

What a friend says...
“Derekford and Destiny’s relationship is one that I admire a lot. I generally look up to it. I find them so real in a way that they do not try to force life but they are what they are to each other. They respect and cherish each other. Actually Derekford keeps calling her bae irrespective of where they are and who is around, which is an indicator of who she is to him. They also treasure their friends a lot and they do not take them for granted. At least they check on me whenever they feel I am so quiet. And most importantly they are a groomed couple. They are well-behaved and well brought up and I have no doubt their baby girl has the best parents.”