If you’ve ever experienced heartbreak, you’d know it feels like a better day may never come. In this article, I asked Nigerian women to tell me about their worst heartbreak, here’s what six of them had to say:
AJ, 22
I was in love with my friend, Ebi* in secondary school. We were in JS2 together but she was into someone else. In SS2, we got closer. We did almost everything together — bathing together, brushing together, and doing our assignments together. We would stay up all night talking. On the night of her birthday, she asked me out and we started dating.
Ebi is a stud so there were rumours about her queerness but when we started dating, things became worse. Something else happened to her around this time and this made school unbearable for her. She told me at the end of the school year that her parents were considering transferring her to a different school. I was upset but she told me they hadn’t made a decision yet, so she wanted to try convincing her parents to let her stay.
We stayed in touch through the holidays and at the end of every conversation, she assured me that her parents had not decided on leaving. At the end of the holiday, she told her parents had decided to let her stay. I was so excited to see her again. I resumed early. I waited all day for her to arrive but she didn’t. It was odd for boarding students to resume on Mondays so I asked her cousin when she was coming but she told me that Ebi’s parents had transferred Ebi to another school out of the state. I felt my heart stop but I had to act like I wasn’t bothered because of the rumours. After school, I went to my bed and cried like a bastard.
Felicia, 24
My ex-boyfriend was three years younger than me. I was a struggling youth corper and he was winging it as an artist when we met. I had sworn to never date a guy younger than me again but something about him made me take a chance. We met through a friend. On our first date, he took me to a rooftop, and we had a picnic. He sang to me as we stared at the moon all night. We were almost inseparable after that.
We continued dating for a year, but at the end of the year, he told me that he had fallen out of love with me. He said it was because, at the beginning of our relationship, he knew I wasn’t serious with him — I was worried about the age difference. I was so hurt because I had gotten over the age thing but I was also moving to a different city — I knew the distance would have been a problem too — so I broke up with him. It’s been a year since our break up and even though I called the relationship off, I’m still heartbroken.
Damilola, 19
In 2017, I reconnected with a guy I had a friends-with-benefits relationship with. He made it clear that he had feelings for me and would like us to be in a serious relationship. I was sceptical at first but I had always liked him, so I said yes. I had never been in an exclusive relationship before him but I wanted to make it work.
We kept having issues — they would start as minor arguments and then escalate. He said I was being difficult about not wanting to send him nudes, even after I explained to him that I was dealing with body dysmorphia. He was friends with my best friend so she knew everything that was going on with us. She would help us resolve our issues by playing peacemaker.
He kept cancelling the plans we made to hang out. One day, we were supposed to meet at a hotel but he stood me up as usual so I went to my friend’s place to get my mind off him. That night, he called me and said some abusive words about how I didn’t care about him. He said SARS
A week later, he apologized on Instagram. I forgave him but a part of me had checked out emotionally. Less than a month later, I made up my mind to leave him after my friend showed me her chat where he was hitting on her. That night, he tried to talk to me but I refused. A few months later, he called me, accusing me of setting him up when SARS arrested him. After the call, he sent a text saying, “I hope you and your family die, bitch, and I’m glad I treated you and your bestie like the trash you both are”. When I confronted her about it, she told me she was pregnant. She couldn’t turn to him for help and she couldn’t keep the baby either. As much as I was hurt, I couldn’t leave her to suffer, so I paid for her to get an abortion and stayed with her through it. After everything, I stopped talking to her.
Dolly, 22
In 2020, I followed Ivie* because I thought her profile picture was pretty. Somehow we started talking, and it was fun. We found out that we attended the same school but lived in different states. She told me she wasn’t sure she wanted a relationship and I was okay with it but a few months later, she said she loved me. I was already in love with her so I thought we were going to work out.
Two months later, she stopped calling or texting. It seemed like I was the one doing everything, so I told her I couldn’t be in the relationship anymore. She read the message but never replied. When school was about to resume in January, she hit me up and asked to meet. We did and she apologised for airing me. We continued our relationship in school. In February, we took a walk one evening, and I asked if we were serious. She said she wasn’t serious with the relationship and that was when I realized she had never really wanted me — she was just bored.
Milola, 24
I was dating this girl for about three years. We did almost everything together. I wanted to be with her for as long as possible but in the third year, she invited me to her wedding as her bridesmaid. I never replied to that message.
Maxine, 25
I loved my ex-boyfriend with everything in me. I would lie to my parents so I could travel to Lagos to see him. 18 days after our first anniversary together, he broke up with me. His reason was that I loved him too much and he couldn’t love me as much as I loved him. I tried to convince him to stay but he refused. Since then everything about love has been like cyanide to me.
Tolu, 22
My ex-girlfriend and I live in Lagos but at opposite ends — I live in Ajah and she lives in Ikorodu. We tried to keep up with calls, texts and monthly visits but it was hard. Sometimes my parents won’t let me go out or they would allow me with strict timeframes of when to go and when to come back. I would take a four-hour journey and end up spending just two hours with her. We didn’t even have the privacy to be intimate with each other.
One night, I told her I missed her and she said she missed me too. She sent a hug sticker and I told her I was tired of hug stickers — I wanted to hug her for real. We started talking about how hard the distance was making our relationship and we decided to end it on that note. It hurt like a bitch.
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