On the Streets is a Naijaonpoint weekly series about the chaos of modern dating: from situationships and endless talking stages, to heartbreak and everything it means to be single in today’s world.
Victor* (43) thought he’d found the woman he would spend the rest of his life with. Then a devastating accident changed everything. Years later, his second chance at love ended just as painfully.
In this episode of On the Streets, he opens up about his dating history and why he’s made peace with walking through life alone.
I’m separated from my wife, so I’m single. It isn’t the life I imagined, but I’ve made peace with it.
The first woman I truly loved was someone I met at university. I met Anita* during my third year in 2010. She was a first-year student who was always around her cousin, one of my close friends.
I developed a crush on her almost immediately, but I didn’t confess my feelings until she got to her second year. We started dating in 2011.
I’ve never met anyone I was more compatible with. It was a beautiful relationship. We understood each other, had similar personalities and hardly fought.
About nine months into the relationship, we started talking seriously about marriage. We both wanted it, but the timing wasn’t right.
Her parents wanted her to finish university first. By the time she graduated in 2015, I’d started my master’s degree and couldn’t afford a wedding yet. The plan was to marry after I completed my programme.
Unfortunately, life had other plans.
In September 2015, Anita was crossing an expressway when a driver going against the traffic hit her and sped off. I didn’t even know anything had happened until I called her that evening. Someone else answered her phone and told me she was unconscious in the hospital.
I’ll never forget walking into that ward and seeing her lying there with tubes and machines. After several scans, the doctors told us she’d suffered a severe spinal injury.
She was unconscious for two days. When she finally woke up, she couldn’t move anything below her neck. She kept saying she couldn’t feel her body. We all broke down in tears.
After about five weeks in the hospital, the doctors said there wasn’t much more they could do. They hoped physiotherapy would help, but there were no guarantees.
She became a different person. The cheerful woman I knew disappeared. She cried often and was angry most of the time.
Whenever I tried to encourage her, she’d say I didn’t understand what she was going through. We started arguing, even while she was still in the hospital.
Eventually, her mum took her back to the east because they believed she’d receive better care there.
We tried. At first, we spoke every day, then she started withdrawing.
Sometimes she’d deliberately ignore my calls or ask her mum to say she wasn’t in the mood to speak.
I visited her that December. I wanted to help with things, but she’d get angry whenever I tried. She pushed me away every chance she got. I’d planned to stay for a week, but I left after four days.
After that trip, I promised I’d visit again, but I kept putting it off. Seeing her in that condition was heartbreaking, and the hostility made the thought of visiting emotionally exhausting.
For more than a year, we stayed together, but the relationship was barely surviving. Some days she’d sound hopeful, and we’d have good conversations. Other days, she’d shut me out.
Then I finished my master’s in 2017, and we had to confront the future we’d spent years planning.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure anymore. I still loved her, but I also felt overwhelmed. I think she sensed it.
One day, she brought up the conversation herself.
She asked if we should break up because she couldn’t see the point of marriage in her condition. We argued, then she asked me what plans I was making for our future.
When I couldn’t give her a concrete answer, she said she didn’t want someone marrying her out of pity. She wasn’t in the right headspace for marriage. Then she ended the relationship.
It hurt, especially because she didn’t even want us to stay friends or keep in touch.
But alongside the heartbreak, I also felt relief. And that’s the part I’ve struggled to forgive myself for. I could’ve fought harder for the relationship. Instead, I chose the easier path.
Around the same time, the university offered me a lecturing position after my master’s, so I buried myself in work.
Not for years. I avoided serious relationships because I convinced myself Anita was the one for me. I didn’t want to risk getting my heart broken again.
That was until I met Godiya* in 2021. I spotted her from behind while having lunch at a canteen because I thought she was someone I knew. When she turned around, I’d mistaken her for someone else.
I apologised, but we ended up talking. She was a master’s student in another faculty, and from that first conversation, I was drawn to how warm and charismatic she was. I initially intended to keep things casual, but before long, we started dating.
After she completed her programme, she relocated to Abuja. We continued long distance, and I proposed soon afterwards.
We got married in 2022.
It started well, but it didn’t take long before I noticed things I’d overlooked while we were dating.
Godiya always wanted things done her way. She was quite selfish, and I constantly found myself adjusting to keep the peace.
We met while I was lecturing in Niger State, but after the wedding, she refused to move there. She wanted me to transfer to Abuja instead. I agreed to relocate eventually, but every transfer opportunity fell through.
It became such an issue that both our families got involved. Eventually, they persuaded her to move to Niger.
Not really. She never made any effort to settle in Niger. She didn’t look for a job, so everything fell on me.
What do you think about this?
Drop your opinion in the comment section.
FOLLOW US & Share this with someone who needs to see this.
