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.
Trigger Warning: Domestic Abuse
After years of financial control and abuse in her marriage, Faith* (38) walked away, knowing it would cost her the right to remain in the UK.
In this episode of On the Streets, she shares how she rebuilt her life as a single mother and found unexpected support in another man.
I’m single and not searching. I’ve had many ups and downs with relationships, and right now, being alone feels like the healthiest choice.
My first serious relationship was in 2013, just around the same time I was wrapping up in university.
I started dating Yomi*, someone I’d known through church for years. We’d grown up around each other but only became close as adults.
He was a really nice guy and easy to be around. The only problem was his family. Our mothers attended the same church and already had issues with each other. Somehow, that friction spilled into our relationship.
His mum frequently accused me of being rude or badly behaved. Despite the tension, Yomi and I tried to hold on, but the constant family drama chipped away at our relationship.
Not exactly. Less than a year into our relationship, I found out he’d been cheating on me with another girl from our church. I never saw it coming.
I’m not sure why he cheated, but I felt his family constantly whispering in his ears made it easier for the relationship to fall apart. Whatever the case, I couldn’t forgive him, so we broke up.
I was still nursing the heartbreak when I met David*.
He was a family friend. His aunt lived around our area, and my mum often talked about him because she felt sorry for everything he’d been through.
A few years earlier, David had lost his mum to cancer. She’d practically raised him alone, so losing her completely changed his life. He was the last child and had to move in with his aunt.
We were around the same age and became friends. David was jovial and fun to be around. Being around him pulled me out of my sadness. Before long, I developed feelings for him.
We started dating in 2015, and within months, he asked if I’d marry him.
At the time, I thought I was. I grew up in a traditional family and had always wanted to marry young. When David proposed, my parents were thrilled.
I thought he was the perfect guy. After my experience with Yomi’s family, I also liked that there didn’t seem to be any family drama attached to him.
We got married in October 2016.
I quickly realised there were things about David I hadn’t known while we were dating.
The biggest shock was discovering how much David lied. He’d exaggerated his financial situation and told me his parents had left certain things behind for him, but much of it turned out to be a charade.
He was an engineer, but he didn’t have a stable job. He survived on small jobs here and there, which was very different from the impression he’d given me while we were dating. Whenever I questioned the inconsistencies, he became defensive.
His excuse was that he planned to relocate, so there was no point in committing to a permanent job.
In 2017, he finally got an opportunity to move to the UK. Around the same time, I found out I was pregnant.
I wanted him to wait. I was about three months pregnant and didn’t want to go through it alone. But David refused. During one of our arguments, he slapped me.
He’d never been violent before. I was shocked. He apologised almost immediately, and I convinced myself it was a one-off incident.
I had no idea it was the first glimpse of the man he’d become. He left for the UK later that year.
We spoke regularly, but that didn’t make the pregnancy easier. I had fibroids, which made both the pregnancy and the birth of our son. It hurt that he wasn’t there to support me through any of it.
Before relocating, David had sold almost everything we owned to fund his move. With nowhere else to go, I moved back in with my parents.
I started teaching so I could contribute financially, but I was unhappy. I was married, yet I was living with my parents and raising our baby alone.
Once David settled in the UK, he started the process for my son and me to join him as his dependants. Even then, he claimed he couldn’t afford our visas and plane tickets, so my parents paid for everything. That’s how my son and I joined him in the UK in early 2019.
Not really. Almost as soon as I arrived, David wanted me to start working. He didn’t care that our son was still a baby. Most days, I left him with a Nigerian couple who had helped David when he first arrived in the UK.
David found me a job at a local restaurant, and I started working almost immediately. That’s when he suddenly announced that things were different abroad. He said we had to split the expenses 50-50.
Unfortunately, my salary went into his account because I’d used his bank details when I started the job. So while he talked about equality, I didn’t even have control of my own half. Anytime I needed money, I had to explain what it was for before he’d release it. I hated being so dependent on him.
Then the pandemic hit in 2020. David’s salary was cut during the lockdown, which added to our issues. We fought constantly, and I saw more of the man he’d hidden before we got married.
They only did after I got a better-paying caregiving job through a family connection in 2021. This time, I made sure my salary went into my own account.
David was upset. Even though I still contributed half of the household expenses, he complained that I wasn’t giving enough. He even reported me to someone in our community, hoping they’d convince me to hand over more of my salary. Instead, the person told him it was my money and that contributing half was fair.
I think losing control over my money made him angry. He’d ignore me for days at a time. Around that period, I discovered he was having an affair.
I found messages on his phone. When I confronted him, he said we’d only had one child, and since I hadn’t gotten pregnant again despite trying, he decided to look out. For a while, his words made me feel guilty, as though I was responsible for his cheating.
I also think our financial situation affected his self-esteem. He became obsessed with impressing people and maintaining a lifestyle we couldn’t afford. He’d brag to his friends about things when I knew the reality of our finances. At one point, he got a car he couldn’t keep up the repayments on, and it was eventually repossessed.
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