Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

What was your first impression of each other?

Bode: I stumbled on her Instagram page by chance in 2017 when I’d just created an account. And I thought she was so gorgeous. I knew from some of the things she wrote that she was Nigerian, and I had to try to get in touch with her.

Ann: I’d only had my own account for about five months thanks to a slightly younger friend of mine who always made an effort to stay on trend. I was barely active on Facebook, but she had me believing Instagram was the place to be if I wanted to keep up with the world.

When Bode messaged me at first, I thought, “Aha, the creeps have come.” But I took the time to read his introduction, and it was well-crafted and poetic. I had to respond.

Bode: Immediately I got to find out we were in the same city, I set up a meeting — a date, really. And the rest they say is history.

How did this first “meeting” go?

Bode: Splendidly. We found out that it’s truly a small world, and on top of that, we had a lot in common.

Ann: Starting with the fact that he and my mum were from the same Egba town in Ogun state, and we’d both recently lost our spouses. 

His first wife died about a year before from breast cancer, and I lost my husband to a botched hip surgery four months before I met Bode. In fact, I’d only just decided to overcome the grief when I read his DM. After our first meeting, I felt guilty for days because it felt like such a huge betrayal to my husband’s memory to talk to another guy who wasn’t a friend.

Bode: We took a break for about a month before we talked again, and I told her I liked her a lot. I told her I wanted to take care of her and help her heal properly.

Ann: We had this long phone conversation where he told me all about how his wife passed, what it was like for him and what helped him recover. All I did was bawl my eyes out during that call, but it was also healing for me. It was some kind of therapy, and I appreciated that he was bold enough to initiate that kind of conversation with me. 

All my friends did was pretend the death never happened, even pretend that Ezekiel never existed, just so they don’t upset me. But I needed that good cry, and Bode did that for me.

So you decided to start seeing each other?

Ann: Yes. 

I was sad for a while after that call. But then, I was happy again and much lighter. And Bode was through my door with a basket of fruits, wine and baked goods the next morning. We had a pseudo picnic on the floor of my living room.

Bode: We talked for a while, about her family, about church, about how far apart we lived. Both our kids were mostly adults by then, and out of the house for college or work. She only had one son who had less than two more years left in high school. Now, he’s long gone, far away in Sydney.

Ann: From that day on, we became each other’s companions as Bode was nearing retirement. 

My friends were a little concerned at first because it was a rule for us to be careful around people who were complete strangers. We always had to befriend or date a friend of a friend of a friend, even if there were 1,000 friends between us. As long as someone somewhere knew the person, or at least, were coworkers or church mates. You can never be too safe in the US of A. But because Bode lived on the other side of the city, no one in my circle could vouch for him, and that made my people concerned. 

I decided to take that risk, and six years on, I don’t regret it. He’s fully integrated into my group now.

It’s been six years? Will there be wedding bells anytime soon?

Bode: It’s something we talk about time and time again, but we may never do it.

Ann: The memories of our spouses are still very much in our relationship today. We owe it to ourselves to completely heal from that before embarking on such a pivotal journey with each other. We’re taking it easy with separate and joint therapy and really just want to take this relationship at its natural pace.

Bode: Age might not be on our side, but we already had the marriage of our youth, so we’re not in a hurry.

Her separation from her husband was also quite rough. She didn’t get to have closure like I did. I spent years nursing Funmi, so there was plenty of time to let go and come to terms with the finality of her absence. 

For Ann, one moment he was in through the theatre doors to undergo a pretty routine procedure, the next? 

Ann: It was completely unexpected. I didn’t get to say goodbye. There were way too many things left unsaid. That’s a lot of baggage to bring into a new marriage.

Bode: I’ve had closure, but I haven’t quite let go of my wife either. Not sure I ever will. Her photos are everywhere.

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Would you then consider your current relationship romantic given the situation?

Bode: It’s very romantic. Trust me.

Ann: It’s a little unconventional, I know. We don’t live together, and we aren’t necessarily dating to get married, but everything else is romantic. We are the most important people to each other. Sometimes, I imagine I value him even more than my children. He’s my confidant and companion, and he makes me happy in other ways too.

Bode: The intimacy is very strong between us, and I’m grateful for that. There’s something we always do and that’s organise surprises on special days. It’s like a competition now. 

Since the day we got together, I’ve felt like I’ve entered a new lease on life.

How do your kids feel about your relationship?

Ann: My kids are super supportive, but they’re also mostly absent. 

I have four boys. They all left the house during college. My husband and I got a mortgage in a city that isn’t exactly prime commercial U.S. Every young soul is going to Dallas or Silicon. Let them go make money. I don’t think my boys care who I share my bed with.

Bode: I tell you, it’s girls that care about their parents. 

I have two boys and a girl, and after all my “I want sons. I want sons,” who stops by to check that I’ve not passed away in my sleep? Even if it’s just for the small inheritance they may get after, can’t they show concern? I only see all my kids on Christmas Day, but my daughter comes over at least three other times during the year, and I appreciate her for it. 

They’ve all met and adore Ann. What’s not to adore?

Ann: Honestly, I don’t know what’s more heartbreaking, being dumped by a significant other or by your own children. 

These days, I find myself calling home to speak with my parents — yep, they’re still alive — because now, I feel bad for having left them in Nigeria for greener pastures here. My only sister is in the U.K. as well. It must’ve been so hard on them. 

Sorry to digress. In summary, our kids are generally good sports about us being together.

Bode: The only time my eldest showed concern was when I sold the house I’d only just finished covering the mortgage on, to buy a smaller one closer to Ann. He raised eyebrows over FaceTime when that happened, but then, he casually said, “Well, it’s your life, Dad. I hope she makes you happy.” His flippant tone was the worst thing ever. 

Kids will break your heart, mark my words.

OMG. Have you two had a major fight yet?

Bode: Of course. We’ve fought over politics most of all. She’s a lot more conservative Republican than I am, and a lot less concerned about what’s happening in Nigeria. So it’s either I’m too understanding of the ongoing gender and sexuality topic, not Christian enough or I get too worked up over a country neither of us have been to in decades.

Ann: He’s American, born and bred, and only visited Lagos a couple of summers when he was a teenager and his grandmother was keen on seeing more of him. I actually lived in Nigeria up until I was 16. So I don’t get why he acts more concerned than the pope. Especially since there’s little either of us can do about the state of things there.

Bode: Who knows? We won’t know if we don’t talk about it.

Anyway, we also fought over therapy once. 

Ann: In 2021, our psychologist concluded that his casual drinking was becoming more insistent because it’s been his grief coping mechanism for too long. He stubbornly insisted he was no longer in grief, so why would he need alcohol to cope? 

I could see that she was right, but he couldn’t. It frustrated me because he was beginning to drink a lot and at odd hours of the day. Maybe he’d started thinking about his wife more, but he wouldn’t open up to me and kept insisting he was fine. 

Eventually, the whole thing blew up, and we had our biggest argument yet. It left me in tears. However, we came out of it knowing we weren’t trying to hurt each other. It was a hard period for us that lasted some weeks, but we were able to work through his feelings together, and that only strengthened our relationship.

Bode: I couldn’t have said any of that better myself.

I have no idea if I actually missed my wife or if it was just general disillusionment about life, but it was great to have a support system in Ann at that time.

How would you rate your Love Life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Bode: 10/10

Ann: Same. You came at the perfect time. You’re my Godsend.

Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.

NEXT UP: Love Life: We’ve Drifted Apart, but Can’t Break Our Engagement

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

How did you meet each other?

Tolani: We met during NYSC in 2012. We joined the NEMA CDS group at the same time and made friends with each other and a couple of other members. Then we all started attending the meetings in a group and checking up on each other at our PPAs. 

We didn’t start dating immediately. Her eyes were on some other guy in the CDS group who wasn’t part of our group of friends. They got close at a point and then I stopped seeing them together.

Praise-el: I realised the guy wasn’t serious at all. All he did was smoke weed. I got closer to Tolani after I cut the guy off, and we ended up becoming closer than the rest of our group because our corper lodges were in the same area.

Tolani: Then we went into an everlasting talking stage where I tried to take things to the next level countlessly, and she remained non-committal.

Praise-el: After I got strung along by the first guy, I got it into my head that people only look for flings during NYSC. Most people were trying to have as much sex as possible so that they could return to their home states and actual lives without strings attached. 

I thought Tolani was the same, and I’m not the kind of person who can date for fun. Maybe if we were both serving in a state we both lived in, I would’ve been more open. I actually liked him from the start, but he lived in Lagos while I lived in Kaduna. I didn’t see a future for us outside NYSC.

That makes sense, but how did your relationship advance?

Tolani: I was persistent, so we stayed in contact after passing out in October 2012. Three months later, she moved to Lagos for a job. By then, I was her closest friend in town, so we started hanging out a lot, and she found a community in my circle of friends. 

At first, I wanted us to stay friends because I was still sore from her constant rebuffs during NYSC. But once we hung out, I realised I still liked her a lot and hadn’t had my eyes on anyone else in a while.

Praise-el: I have that effect on people. 

I started liking him way more too, and really wanted him to ask me out again. He was a smart, serious-minded person and that sort of thing always attracts me. He was also really charming, so actually I wasn’t sure if he liked me at that point or if it was just his usual charm that made him nice to me. However, I couldn’t ask him because I couldn’t let go of the idea that a man must always ask a woman out.

Tolani: Sometime in March, I got a really good job with an FMCG that works closely with her company. We were both in entry roles, but we were able to help each other with information to meet targets that got us confirmed to junior positions in a few months. That really helped us get closer.

Praise-el: We got our confirmation letters within a month of each other. It was crazy. Our friends took us out to celebrate, and it was on my way home, as he walked me out to get a cab, that he asked me to be his girlfriend. I just said okay. 

It was later we realised that it was almost two years after we met for the first time in January 2012.

And what was dating like after this?

Praise-el: Honestly, nothing much changed. We didn’t even start having sex until we’d decided we’d get married.

Tolani: We were already very close friends who had the same friends and work-related relationships. So it was just more of hanging out and way more calls to check in on each other. Also, we spent more time in each other’s houses. I still lived with my parents at the time, but she had her own apartment she shared with a colleague, so we were there a lot.

Praise-el: It became his second house, but we mostly moved out of it to attend events and other activities. 

I heard something about deciding to marry

Tolani: We started talking marriage very early on. It started with plans to launch a start-up. We both studied finance and discovered our shared interest in being entrepreneurs during our early conversations. 

When I went to her place for the first time, I saw copies of books like Rich Dad Poor Dad, Outliers and different company biographies lying around. A black-and-white cover of Losing My Virginity comes to mind. We started talking about wealth and building successful businesses, and it just became a passion we shared.

Praise-el: You’re probably wondering how that led to marriage talks. We talked about being business partners, but we were dating, so I think he was like it’d be great if we were life partners first. It sounded romantic at the time.

Tolani: We decided to get married during the first month or so, but I don’t think at that time we thought we’d be married after five months.

Praise-el: Our careers were going well, and we had a lot of job security. In less than two years of working, I already had a sizable savings. I wasn’t privy to his finances at the time, but I knew we were both self-sufficient. 

Our relationship was going strong because we’d synergise for work. We’d help each other with contacts, connects and even gossip that was useful for company politics. We also had our parents’ network helping us both career-wise, signing references required to get some contracts and so on.

Tolani: Then we had sex for the first time, and Praise-el woke up the next morning, saying we should tell our parents we want to get married and go to Ikoyi Registry ASAP. I was in tears like “What the fuck?” 

She wasn’t joking.

Praise-el: I put my dad on the phone while we were still in bed and told him that Tolani wanted to tell him something.

OMG. That sounds like a lot of pressure

Tolani: It was. I just told him I wanted to come see him soon. 

We went to Kaduna the following week. We took time off work and spent a long weekend with them. At first, I was sure I wouldn’t tell them anything about marriage — not because I didn’t want to marry her but because I felt we had all the time in the world to do it. But on the Sunday night before we had to leave for Lagos, I changed my mind. 

Praise-el: I didn’t pressure him. I just think we had a lot of time to just relax together and have conversations. We talked about just getting the wedding out of the way so we could focus on building wealth and launching the business and raising our kids together, basically being in each other’s dream chasing origin stories.

Tolani: I believed in her and us. 

That night, I took a drive into town alone, called my own parents to tell them, and my dad was just laughing at me. They sha gave their blessings, so I spoke with her parents the next morning before we left. It was nerve-wracking but it also made me feel proud of myself for crossing such a definitive milestone.

Praise-el: I’m an only child and when I was younger, I used to tell my parents I didn’t want to get married, so they were quite relieved and happy for me. They promised to make the trip to Lagos for the court wedding when we were ready.

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Was it just a court wedding ceremony?

Praise-el: No, we had a traditional wedding about three weeks later. Court weddings are just sharp and low-maintenance, so we just wanted to get that out of the way. But there was no way in hell his parents were going to let their second son go without Yoruba fanfare. 

My parents on the other hand had separated themselves from our hometown a long time ago. We never even visit our village or relate too closely with our relatives because according to my parents, they can be diabolical. So we didn’t go there. I only invited some of my aunts and uncles.

Tolani: We also did a church thanksgiving after the court wedding, but no white wedding. At that point, we felt very “married” and didn’t feel like we needed further ceremony to establish that.

Praise-el: Especially since we were also in the middle of a two-month long house hunt. I didn’t know it would get a thousand times worse in the future, but getting a decent place to stay in Lagos is the ghetto. Apparently, we were asking for too much in terms of the area we wanted to live in so we had to change locations and living specifications.

Tolani: We had to live in a hotel for about two weeks because we didn’t want to stay in my parents’ house or her one room after we’d done the traditional wedding. We’d been living separately since the court wedding and we didn’t want to continue that either.

Anyway, that was the worst decision we could ever make.

How so?

Tolani: It was expensive. Our savings took a big dent. But also, reverting from that to packing into our new home, unpacking and settling into normal living was jarring. There’s no room service at home.

Praise-el: Also, living in a hotel for that long wasn’t ideal. It gave the first few weeks of our marriage a weird transient vibe. I think the fact that everything happened so quickly didn’t help. When we finally unpacked everything and started settling into our new life together, there was a lot of friction. 

Tolani: We were both so stressed. Don’t forget that we were both still going to work throughout this period. We only got a two-week break. So there was work pressure too. I remember that we didn’t even have sex for the first two to three months of our marriage.

Praise-el: I remember crying a lot and needing a shoulder but also realising I couldn’t go to my parents because I didn’t want them to think I was questioning my decision. I also didn’t want to go to any of my friends because most of them were his too, and I also didn’t want them knowing I had any issues so early into it that they’d mistakenly use against us later on in life. It wasn’t like I didn’t love him anymore or had any form of regret. I was just overwhelmed. It’s hard to explain.

Tolani: It was just growing pains, I think.

Praise-el: We’d fight over the smallest things. I was always so heated up like I needed to drain some energy from my veins or something.

I’m so sorry. It sounds so hard. How did you make things work?

Tolani: Eventually, the stress eased, and we just fell into a healthy space of getting used to each other and talking things out.

Praise-el: Something that really helped was finally getting the album of photos from our traditional wedding. Seeing those physical evidences of our joining and how good we looked together, how happy everyone was to celebrate us was strangely validating. The memory of us sitting alone together in the living room of our very first apartment together, turning those big pages, is stuck in my heart. There was no light so we were even sweating.

Tolani: Yeah, the ventilation in that house was bad. I like that we sorted things out between us without needing to involved external parties. That set the tone for how we deal with things between us. 

Praise-el: And remembering the vision that led us to marriage in the first place, working towards that goal of building wealth and starting our business. Once we started thinking about that and really making plans, it was easy for romance to come alive again. There was something to look forward to and be excited about.

So is it just about career for you? 

Tolani: I won’t say “just”. It might be what keeps us going but every relationship has their version of that. For some, it’s chemistry, children, shared interests, ministry. Most people don’t even have a unifying goal, and that’s why I think many relationships and marriages fade away after a while. For us, it’s building a company that stands the test of time just like all the amazing companies we’ve worked for all our lives.

Praise-el: And the realisation that we’re both capable of making this happen alone or together makes us very happy to be together. Two good heads a better than one after all. Our focus on money making has also made a lot of other things easier for us: maintaining a certain standard of life we aspired towards, giving our three children the kind of education we wished we had, we even have hobbies now, and romance is much easier after you’ve focused on career and making money — or how did Davido put it.

Tolani: We’re not where we want to be financially yet, but we’ve come a long way. And sometimes, when I look back I’m so proud of us. One thing I want to add about getting married right away is now that we’re making a lot of money we don’t have to second guess whether we still like each other or it’s just money that’s making us pretend. There’s not much room for ego because we struggled together to get here and we’re both earning almost equally.

And have you started the dream company yet?

Tolani: Not yet. But it’s coming. 

Praise-el: We’ve spent the last year courting early-stage investors, so it’s closer than ever. It’s a consumer goods manufacturing and distribution. We’re finalising manufacturing sources and distribution channels, due diligence, compliance and all that. It’s a huge risk we’re taking but it’s been a decade in the making so we trust we’ve done all our homework.

Tolani: There’s the lobbying involved as well. This is still Nigeria, a rough landscape for businesses. Thankfully, a person like Tinubu is in power now, so things will make sense soon enough.

I pray so. What was your first major fight about?

Tolani: We haven’t really had any. There was one time we fought about our house space. She’d started keeping her clothes in the guest bedroom because our wardrobe was too small for both of us, so one day, she just lashed out about how I couldn’t even notice that we’d outgrown our apartment. This was sometime in 2017. 

Praise-el: It wasn’t really a fight though. Most of our arguments are about the children. Either frustrations with their nannies or disagreements over something to do with their school.

Tolani: We argue about work-related gist too sha.

Praise-el: That’s right. It’s also not a piece of cake trying to build a business with your spouse. You can’t just say no, you have to coat it with explanation and mangae communication so it doesn’t ever feel like you’re taking them for granted. Thankfully, our business mentors help out on that front.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your Love Life?

Praise-el: 8

Tolani: 8

Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.

RECOMMENDED: Love Life: We Cheated, and We Moved Past It

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

How did you meet?

Kuro: We met by chance at a cyber café in 2009. I went there to put together my master’s application documents.

She was there to get her younger brother who was busy playing PlayStation 2 with his friends. We were both delayed for so long that we struck up a conversation. I don’t think anyone said “hi” first; we just started talking about something we noticed, and that was it.

Dupe: It turned out that we both lived off the same street. We later found out our parents even knew themselves from living in the same area for so long. 

Kuro: Anyway, we exchanged numbers before parting ways. But I didn’t ask her out because I was sure I’d relocate soon for school. I even got a part-scholarship.

But?

Kuro: The uncle who promised to sponsor me suddenly started posting me until I missed my resumption window. I’d even spent money on a UK visa application by then. It was painful, but I deferred from the September intake to January. That one too came, and this uncle suddenly became scarce. He even started avoiding the whole family because of a promise no one forced him to make.

Dupe: Now that I know him well, I can’t believe he pretends like none of this ever happened.

Kuro: I’m not even shocked anymore.

Dupe and I got close during this trying period. She was one of the reasons I got over the disappointment and picked my life back up. We didn’t even see each other again until almost a year after we met, but we were always texting on 2go and BBM. 

Dupe: Three months after we met, I agreed to date this other guy. I liked him so much that I let him get away with too much. We lasted about ten months before we broke up in 2010.

When did you start liking each other?

Kuro: I think once my eyes cleared from the whole UK relocation dream, it was easy to see that Dupe was the only person, apart from my guys and family, who was there for me and supportive. I wanted to hang out with her because it felt like we hadn’t really gotten to know each other yet. 

Once I got a decent job and received a few months’ salary, I asked for us to meet up at a popular eatery then. This was in April 2010.

Dupe: We met up and gisted, and that was it. We were still friends. But then, we started doing midnight calls, talking about nothing. My boyfriend started feeling threatened by him. In July, we broke up because he said his pastor told him to, and I immediately told Kuro, “Let’s be in a relationship”.

Kuro: I was shocked, but if I didn’t like her before, the way she called to tell me that initiated the feelings. I even played “hard to get” because I was like, “Wait for me to ask you first na. Why are you jumping the script?”

Dupe: Me, I was like, “Stay there. You’ll know when I find another person to fill your spot.” LOL.

What was it like going from friendship to dating?

Dupe: It was different. I wanted him to be there for me ALL THE TIME, and a part of me could tell it was overwhelming for him, but I couldn’t help myself.

Kuro: The first few months when she called to tell me every single thing happening to her was a lot to handle, I must admit. But I also liked being her first go-to person. Before her, I’d only ever dated one person, and it wasn’t a serious relationship.

Dupe: In my previous relationship, I second-guessed myself a lot. My partner made me question my worth, so I found myself falling back on Kuro for the validation my ex always held back . Kuro gave me all the validation I sought, and I wanted to bask in it. Unfortunately, that too wasn’t healthy.

How were you able to get past this need?

Dupe: Well, things went worse before they became better.

Kuro: We went through life like that for a year. We talked several hours every day and hung out on our street every night. But one day, I was drained and just withdrew for a few days.

Dupe: He took a break from the relationship. The only problem is I wasn’t aware of this at the time.

Kuro: She doesn’t want to expose me, but I’ll expose myself. I slept with someone else, one of my friends. I immediately regretted it, so I told Dupe the next week when we started talking again.

Dupe: I was angry. But I still loved him, so I forgave him.

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So you guys already loved each other at this point?

Kuro: Yes. That’s the only way to explain how we tolerated each other’s madness that year. 

It didn’t take long with the other girl before I became remorseful and wanted to make peace with Dupe. I was scared, but I figured it was better to tell the truth than keep such a thing a secret, or worse, have it come to light when I didn’t expect. It was good I did because the babe wanted to create drama around it later, not knowing I’d already told Dupe everything.

Dupe: I was happy he told me, but I made it clear to him that would be the last time I’d forgive him for cheating. 

Guess who ended up cheating later on.

Not him again?

Dupe: No. Me.

So, after the whole thing came and went, I forgave him, and we talked about where our relationship was going. I spoke to my mum, and she counselled me that I shouldn’t be too needy, relying on him for everything all the time. We were able to fix the way we ran our relationship, and we were happy with the way things went for several months.

Eventually, we decided we wanted to get married and spend the rest of our lives together. But first, we had to deal with his family, particularly his mum and some uncles.

Kuro: I’m Ijaw, and Mum didn’t like that she’s Yoruba. 

Dupe: Even before we decided to get married, I noticed she was cold towards me, but I never guessed it was a tribe thing. 

Kuro: When I told her my intentions, she was adamant that I only marry a south-south or south-east person. She’d never mentioned her stance before, so I was shocked. My dad also wanted to back her up, but I stubbornly insisted on marrying Dupe. 

How did they take it?

Kuro: After months of back and forth, they relented. I’d never had that close-knit relationship with my parents, so nothing much changed between us.

I proposed in January 2012, the day after New Year’s, we moved in together, went to court in March and did our traditional and church wedding in July 2012 — my runaway uncle somehow found money to sponsor half of the expenses. 

Everything was great until we had our second son in 2016. It was a tough pregnancy, but let me not speak about what I didn’t experience physically.

Dupe: It was hard. It took a toll on my body. I almost doubled in size during the course of the pregnancy and then had preeclampsia. By the final trimester, I felt like something was tied up in my brain that needed to be loosened. It was a nagging feeling like I’d run mad if someone didn’t loosen it. 

They did a CS to get our son out, and I was in the hospital for some days. I got back home, and I was just depressed. I’d never felt such a strong emptiness; I wouldn’t wish it on my enemies. When I think back on that time, sometimes, I get anxious. 

How did this lead to cheating?

Kuro: Afterwards, it was like she couldn’t stand me or anything to do with me. She just became difficult to deal with.

Dupe: I was just angry with him.

I started leaning on a man I’d met through work just about a month after I found out I was pregnant. I felt like a different person and Kuro no longer found me attractive. I was secretly ashamed to be my new not-so-sexy self with him. But this guy was older and not-so-sexy himself. He gave me the validation I needed at that time.

How did you get past that in your relationship?

Kuro: She told me she’d slept with this man, and even though I was angry, I understood. I had no choice but to forgive her because of how vulnerable she was then and what she’d gone through to bring my child into the world. However, I couldn’t really forget for a while.

Dupe: Our marriage was strained for about a year after. But it wasn’t just about the cheating. Having children takes a lot out of the marriage bond, in my opinion. It becomes less about marriage and more about family. There’s simply not as much time to relate, for romance or even sex.

Kuro: Between the children and the cheating, the sex has changed a lot between us. Sometimes, it feels like there’s one elephant in the room. 

But like my case from before we got married, I knew it was much better that way than if we kept secrets and tried to deceive each other. I’m glad she immediately came clean to me, and she’s been just as transparent with her activities as she was when we first started dating.

Dupe: One of the things we got used to doing early on was always telling each other what’s going on. If it meant the other person would go their separate way, so be it. We are always kind to each other no matter what because beyond being life partners and lovers, we are friends.

If you didn’t fight over infidelity, what then have you fought over?

Dupe: We didn’t fight much until we had those two boys.

Kuro: Our sons?

Dupe: Our parenting styles are very different. 

I believe in discipline, and I work in investment banking, so I don’t have the luxury of time to pamper anyone. Meanwhile, Dr Kuro believes in interacting with them like he’s their friend. Sometimes, I just want to scream at them so they know not to do certain things, but he’ll say, “Don’t shout at my sons.”

Kuro: They are not goats. How do you want them to grow up cultured if you keep screaming at them?

Dupe: Sorry o. Oyibo.

How would you rate your Love Life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Dupe: 6. Our love is safe and has withstood a lot, so I have high hopes for it.

Kuro: 6 too.

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RECOMMENDED: Love Life: We Don’t Want Marriage or Kids

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

What’s your earliest memory of each other?

Kola: The very first WhatsApp video call we had in July 2020 after a friend of a friend linked us up.

Peju: I told my friends I wanted to end my year-long celibacy run. I hadn’t been in a proper relationship in over a year, konji was being an epic bastard and the lockdown only made it worse for me. 

As soon as it was over, I begged one of my most outgoing friends in our group, until she gave me three guys’ numbers. At first, I was uncomfortable about calling them, but I told myself I wouldn’t have wanted her to give my number to a bunch of random guys.

Kola: But they still got your number when you reached out to them sha.

Peju: I only called one of them and we texted for about a week when I reached out to you. We had the video call the next day because he was desperate to see my face.

Kola: I wanted to be sure the DP was real.

How did the call go?

Peju: It was the world’s longest video call. We were on it for about five hours, but remember that this was post-lockdown when we all seemed to have too much time on our hands. We didn’t exactly talk throughout. We just kept the call going while doing other things, with occasional comments and grunts.

Kola: It was a very comfortable call, and neither of us could end it until MTN eventually ended it for us. But it helped set the tone for us.

Peju: We had similarly languid video calls every other day until we met in person in September. We’d long since agreed to go get drinks as soon as we were both comfortable enough to be outside. And also when the sensible Abuja spots had opened up.

Kola: We met for drinks and the vibe matched up in person. That was the start of our highly convenient situationship.

Why a situationship?

Kola: I’d just gotten out of a long relationship and wasn’t looking to get into another one so soon.

Peju: I was still getting used to the idea that the pandemic wasn’t going to lead to the apocalypse. So you can say I was in the “We’re all going to die tomorrow” mood. I just wanted good sex to guide me into the afterlife well. My priority was, “Will this man bring me the end-of-the-world-level smash I needed?” When we met, I was pretty confident he would just because of how much I wanted to hug him and never leave his arms.

Kola: I was a lot less morbid about the whole thing, but it was exciting to meet an attractive woman who was pretty much ready to have sex right away. No hang-ups.

So did you guys do the deed right away?

Peju: Yes. He invited me over to his house the next day, and I ended up staying there for two days.

Kola: We did other things. 

We played FIFA, she went off for a while with a friend of hers, and I worked from home for a bit. We didn’t just have sex for the whole two days o.

Peju: Of course. No one was thinking that, love.

The sex was alright, so we just continued having it from then on.

You’ve now been together for three years, so can I assume you started liking each other at some point?

Kola: I think we always liked each other. You can like each other and still be in a situationship. 

We just weren’t ready to commit and didn’t try to force ourselves to. It was convenient the way it was, and we were both happy without trying to add responsibilities to it. I was still a bit heartbroken from my ex and also navigating risky waters at work at a time when layoffs and salary cuts were rampant.

Peju: I was going through personal struggles — family drama, unemployment, disillusionment — and was honestly in no headspace to cater to a proper relationship. I even started talking to someone else around Christmas time that year, and almost entered a relationship that would most likely have been toxic. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.

Kola: But she slept with him sha.

Peju: FU. We weren’t committed to each other then. 

Anyways, he caught feelings first and asked me one day if I didn’t feel like we should be more. I was surprised because I believed the old African mother’s take that once a guy can sleep with you casually, he’d never be interested in a relationship. So I asked him what made him bring it up.

Kola: I think it was March 2021. We’d been friends with benefits for several months, and I wasn’t over it yet. I still always wanted to spend time with her. One day, I just grew curious about what she thought of what we were doing, that’s all. I wanted to know where her mind was at.

How did that conversation go?

Peju: We decided to give dating a try. I still didn’t have a job, and my home issues were still there, but it was all less overwhelming to me after the fog that was the COVID period. I was ready to be alive again.

Kola: I’d switched jobs and had better job security at the new place, so you can say I was feeling really good and confident. 

That was until she suggested an open relationship sometime in May 2021.

Peju: I was afraid. 

At some point, I realised I really liked this guy and became scared of the ensuing commitment. I was already anticipating breakfast and wanted to cushion the blow early enough. If we were committed but not exclusive, he’d either break up with me before I fell too hard for him, or I wouldn’t feel so bad anyway because I’d already have someone else.

Kola: She didn’t explain this logic to me at the time, but it would’ve still been the craziest thing I’d ever heard. I told her right away that I didn’t want one, and she just smiled. That’s when I knew it was some kind of test. 

But we didn’t really become a traditional boyfriend and girlfriend until early 2022.

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What’s your version of “traditional boyfriend and girlfriend”?

Kola: Communicating multiple times a day? Always being in each other’s faces physically and virtually? Running the most mundane plans by each other? We do these things now. But in 2020 or 2021? Big fat NOPE.

Peju: Yeah. Even after we had the whole conversation about taking our thing seriously, we’d just have a few calls to check in on each other every other week. It went from calling or texting only when we wanted sugar to small emotional talks here and there. 

One time, he dropped by my house — my parents’ house actually — and brought me this wide tub of goat meat pepper soup. That was probably the most touching thing that happened between us. It was more like we went heavy on the “friends” part of the benefits than we were dating.

Kola: But that was our process to get to where we are now, and we took it. 

Peju: I enjoyed that growing period a lot. Just as I’m enjoying what we have now.

Would you say you guys are in love now?

Peju: I would. Yes.

Kola: Our version of it anyway. 

We care about each other a lot, and I think of her as my best friend right now, definitely the best sex I’ve ever had. But we’ve made this decision to never marry or have kids.

Peju: Oh yeah. I’ve always known I don’t want to get married ever, and he doesn’t want children, so we made a pact.

Wait. Please, explain the root of these decisions

Peju: I lived with my parents all my life until I moved in with him last year, but believe me when I say it was the most toxic situation ever. So toxic that it took Kola’s strength to help extricate myself from it. I’d probably have never had the mental power to get myself out of there. My elder sister is still there today.

I lied to my parents that my new job gave me an apartment in Lagos. They still don’t know I’m in Abuja with them. I’m mentally preparing for the day my mother or relatives in Lagos decide to visit me. I’ll either lie that I’ve gone on a business trip or make a quick trip there and beg one of my close friends to use her flat.

Kola: Or just tell her the truth at that point.

Peju: What my parents have going on is a very abusive thing, and I absolutely never want myself to be so tied to someone — because of a marriage certificate and joint assets and children — that getting out when things get beyond toxic becomes impossible. I can’t let that happen to me after all I’ve experienced, trust me.

Kola: Mine is a lot more mundane. I just don’t want children. 

I’m confident I won’t be a good father, and this world is too messed up to bring new beings into. I don’t want to be responsible for the experiences of a dependent. The idea that your child could go through trauma, and it’d somehow be because of something you didn’t even know you did, is too much of a burden for me to shoulder.

Peju: I’m completely aligned on that, TBH. 

Add that to the actual pregnancy, labour and birth experience, and then, caring for children during that infant-toddler-child and even teenage period? It’s too much. If we were all being honest as a society, we’d confess that it’s all just too much. The pain and suffering in this life is too much jo.

What if you change your mind in your 40s, but then, it’s too late?

Peju: My mother had my only sister and me in her 40s. Rare, but it happened to my mother twice. And come to think of it, maybe there’s a reason she didn’t have us earlier. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to bring us into such a toxic environment, but she forced it. No, I don’t think I’ll change my mind.

Worst case scenario, me and Kola will freeze our eggs/sperm when we get to our 30s. Thank God we’re laser-focused on our careers now, so we may be able to afford IVF. If not, it’s the thought that counts, abi?

Kola: Of course, I’ll always have sperm, so I’m not that pressed to change my mind.

Peju: You just told the universe to give you high blood pressure or prostate cancer.

Kola: God forbid. You’re actually a mad person. But that’s lowkey why I love you.

Peju: Yeah. Anyway, we had this conversation over time as we opened up to each other about our fears. He already knew how much my family life affected me, if not from day one, then from the day he talked me into moving in with him last year. But it took a while for me to find out about his aversion to kids. We were making futuristic plans in January 2023 when he finally admitted he didn’t want them, and I was like, “You know what? I get it.” We made a pact there and then.

Do you remember what your first major fight was about?

Kola: First? Which one was the first now?

Peju: The toilet bag one.

Kola: Oh shit. That one was annoying. God. Small tone in my voice caused wahala.

Peju: It was one of my first few sleepovers at his place during COVID year. I don’t know how my black toilet bag found its way to his kitchen. All I remember is that it was dirty, so I unpacked it one evening with the intention of giving it a little scrub and letting it dry before putting my stuff back in. 

But that never happened because, sex.

Kola: Anyway, later that night, I saw it on the kitchen counter when things were still a little foggy. I picked it up and said, “What is this?” in what Peju called a disrespectful tone and threw it in the bin.

Peju: Not just any bin o. The kitchen garbage can that had trash food and everything. I was so upset.

Kola: She screamed at me and insulted my life. I ended up throwing her out of my flat. Not one of my finest moments. We were still a “situation” then, so it didn’t really affect us. We just called each other the next time we needed sex — about two weeks later — and continued on.

Ahhh. And you forgot that was your first fight?

Kola: Oh, we’ve fought — a lot.

Peju: Yes na. Not every time love and light. Sometimes, you need drama and chaos for that healthy balance. It’s the struggle to be “cool” in relationships that used to cause see-finish o.

Agreed. How would you rate your love life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Kola: 10

Peju: I was looking at you well to see if you’ll call any lower number. Hmm.

Kola: I’m tired of this person.

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RECOMMENDED: Love Life: I Married Him at 20 to Avoid Sin

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

How did you meet?

Jola: We met at a friend’s off-campus birthday party in 2016. We were still undergrads, and I think our whole class attended it. The place was packed because her boyfriend had taken over the party, and I barely knew anyone. 

At some point, I saw this guy sitting by himself, looking very chill and contemplative. I watched him for a bit and noticed one of my friends knew him. Later on, I asked him to introduce us. The chill guy turned out to be Alex.

Alex: That’s pretty much it. We were introduced, and just like that, she came into my life. A week later, she moved into my flat.

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Before or after you’d agreed to date?

Alex: After. But we never really agreed; we just knew. We talked for a long time during the party, eventually left and took a stroll where we didn’t say much. Then we ended up at my place. The relationship started right away, to be honest.

Jola: There was no asking out. There was just “I like you”, “I like you too”. Then months later, “I love you”, “I love you too”. That was really it for us. We knew we’d met the one.

We graduated the following year, so it was great to have him as a present support system through graduation struggles, NYSC and the start of our careers. We’re both creatives, so we were able to develop our craft together, hustle for gigs together and so on.

Alex: It was pretty convenient for us to fall in love.

Since we’ve jumped to that, how exactly did you know you were in love?

Alex: She moved in pretty early on, and it somehow felt natural. That must’ve been the first sign. 

As soon as she came with her black box and big pink bag  — without my prior permission, by the way — I don’t think I’d ever been happier, and I’m usually territorial. 

I’m always so happy to do things for her, to get her gifts or just small things she likes, and she always pops up in my mind when something interesting is happening.

Jola: I knew I was in love with him after living with him for about a month and realising I wasn’t sick of him. He’s such a pleasure to live with. He’s not perfect — we do have our fights once in a while — but he’s so considerate, neat and clean. In fact, I’ve learnt to be cleaner from him. 

I also always want to be with him, but I’ve never felt like he thinks I’m too needy or clingy.

Alex: Yeah. We go everywhere together. We’re like each other’s hand bag. We don’t have everything in common, but we have such good conversations. We can talk for hours and hours.

Jola: We were considering starting a podcast together, inspired by my popular namesake. But that was before literally everyone jumped on it.

Right? But what led up to Jola moving in? What was it about that first week?

Jola: It’s been over seven years. Not sure it was even that big of a deal. I’ll say I wanted to visit him all the time. 

Alex: She was always at my place after that first night. Maybe because it was closer to campus and in a more convenient part of the school community than hers. 

Jola: I’d go straight to his after classes or we’d go out together and end up back there after. Then I’d find it hard to make it back to my flat later. 

Alex: Either it’d get too late or we just didn’t want to part ways. So most nights, she’d sleep over. 

Jola: Then in the morning, I’d be worried about getting ready, if my clothes were rumpled, stuff like that. By the end of the first week, I was tired of that routine. I went home one afternoon, packed my important items and returned to his place. Over the next few days, I moved my remaining things and abandoned the rest. Even after graduation, I never went back to my parents’ house. 

Wild. How did they take that?

Jola: They pushed back for a bit. My mum felt I just wanted freedom to be wayward, but once they knew the pressure wasn’t working, they eased off. It helped that I didn’t need them for the rent because they’d never have released funds. I also stopped asking them for allowance.

Alex: My parents, on the other hand, thought I should’ve been saving for important projects instead of spending on rent so early. But it’s not like we got an apartment in Lekki Phase 1. I told them to calm down.

Jola: We both served in Kogi for NYSC and got cheap corper housing for the year. When we moved back to Lagos, we got a place close to the university community in Yaba. We paid for everything off our earnings as freelancers for another year.

Alex: We really tried o. We’ve come far.

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True. How are you guys not married yet?

Jola: We’re still saving for that o. Country hard. Haven’t you heard?

Alex: And when we think “marriage”, we also think of children. We have high hopes for our future kids — what school they’ll attend, what activities we’d like for them to be involved in — so we need to get to a certain level in our careers first.

Jola: That’s it.

Alex: Besides that, we’re already married in our own eyes.

Fair. But what was your first major fight about?

Jola: So when we first got together in 2016, he used to study overnight a lot. He’d leave the bedroom light on through the night instead of just going to the living room. He didn’t like going there because he shared it with his two housemates. 

Meanwhile, I’m a light sleeper and can’t sleep if it’s not pitch dark. I thought since he knew this, he’d stop, but no. One time, he did it for three days straight, and I wasn’t getting any sleep. 

Alex: Yeah. I actually didn’t put two and two together.

Jola: When I finally told him on the fourth day, he just dismissed it — his studies were more important than my rest. That night, two of his coursemates came to the room to read until around midnight. I had an exam at 8 a.m. the next day. I was so angry, and I told him as soon as they left.

Alex: She ranted for a while and then started crying. I stood there shocked. I sincerely had no idea the light was affecting her sleep. I really felt bad, but me too, I didn’t immediately apologise. I just left the room for her that night. I actually cried in the sitting room because of how bad I felt, and I was also overwhelmed with final exam pressure and exhaustion.

Jola: We gave each other attitude for the rest of the exam period, but as soon as it was done, we made up and it was as if the fight never happened. It was just exam hormones.

What’s the best thing about being together so far?

Jola: How well we understand each other and get along.

Alex: Yeah. The whole foundation of our relationship is that we get along well. Everything happens naturally.

Jola: We get along with the other important people in each other’s lives too. All our friends are now friends with each other, same with our siblings and parents. We even use each other as a vibe check. If you don’t get along with someone I’m about to be friends with, they usually get cut off and vice versa.

Alex: We also have so many inside jokes now. How could I start that over with someone new?

What’s the most unconventional thing about your relationship?

Jola: How little sex we have? People expect that we must have a lot of sex because of how clingy we are to each other, but we only have sex every other day. 

Alex: Are you joking? Tell me you’re joking.

Jola: Maybe twice a week at most. 

Anyway we made a decision a few years back to only fight or argue via text. Even if we’re in the same house.

Alex: It doesn’t always work, but it’s the funniest thing when it happens. And depending on how serious the fight is, it diffuses the situation a bit. Have you ever texted while you’re angry? It’s the worst.

How would you rate your Love Life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Jola: A high 8 that’s leaning towards 9.

Alex: 9

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RECOMMENDED: I Was Gay Until I Met Her

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

What’s your earliest memory of each other?

Kunle: In January 2022, we met on a danfo going from CMS to Eko Hotel roundabout. It was around 6:30 a.m., we sat together, and there was bumper-to-bumper traffic for most of the way because of all the closed roads and bridges. We were both sweaty but trying to maintain beauty for the office.

Temi: It was hard for us public transport users that year. I always got to the office exhausted. Well, not much has changed now.

But that day, we got to talking when he got a glance at my music playlist on my phone. He saw I liked a lot of sad music and commented on it. That’s how we started talking about music and our work.

Kunle: When we finally got to our destination, it was some minutes past eight, and we were both late for work, so we didn’t even bother to rush. We’d found out we worked not too far from each other, so we got into a keke together and that’s where we exchanged phone numbers.

When did you realise you liked each other?

Temi: We started meeting up in the evenings to catch the bus going to Barracks together, and we really got along on these bus trips. After some days, he told me he normally carpooled with a man who uses his private car as a taxi when he was coming to work in the morning and leaving at night. The only reason he’d been using the danfo that week was because the man had travelled. 

He invited me to carpool with him, and I agreed. It was a great decision because the man’s car was so comfortable; it was air conditioned, and he lived closer to my house, so I could just walk home from where he dropped me off.

Kunle: There were usually four of us from different offices in this man’s car. And on rare occasions, five. Instead of having to jump danfos at up to four stops between work and home, we could just sit back and relax for a long stretch of time. It didn’t even cost that much more. We got to talk and get to know each other without the stress and noise of danfo buses. I think that’s how we started liking each other.

What interesting things did you find out about each other?

Kunle: That she catered for small events on the side. I immediately loved that she was that enterprising.

Temi: For me, I found out he was gay, first of all.

Kunle: I like to have that out of the way when I’m getting to know people, so they can decide if they want to move the friendship forward from early on. 

I once had a friend who was so angry when she found out I was gay about a year into our friendship. She said I’d betrayed her trust and blocked me.

I think on the second day of going home in the private car, I told her.

Temi: It was refreshing to meet a gay person in person and have him be so open about it without it necessarily showing in his behaviour. I was a bit disappointed though, because I thought he was cute.

Kunle: She asked to see a picture of my boyfriend at the time, and I showed her.

Temi: He was cute too. It really wasn’t fair.

When did you both know you’d fallen in love?

Kunle: The next month, that “cute” guy broke up with me. I’d never experienced as much heartbreak as I did after it happened, probably because we dated for two and a half years. I really thought we’d be committed for life, but apparently, we weren’t on the same page. 

That’s what made it even more upsetting. Was he pretending about liking me as much as I thought he did? I suddenly didn’t know.

Temi: He was so withdrawn one day. And he was like that for some weeks, but I didn’t know why. He’d miss the car on some days, and I started feeling somehow about entering without him because I didn’t know anyone else in the car. 

So I went back to danfos. When I tried to chat him up to check up on him, he’d just say he was fine. I was worried but I left him. But then, I started missing him.

Kunle: When I started getting over my ex, I felt bad for leaving her hanging like that. I’d noticed she was no longer going with the car. I felt bad that I’d pushed her to go for a much more uncomfortable transport option. I called her up one day and apologised for my sudden withdrawal.

When I finally told her about the break up one Saturday, she told me to meet up with her somewhere she was going to deliver packs of jollof rice she’d made to a birthday celebrant.

Temi: He came to where we’d agreed to meet up, which was not too far from his place, and I gave him a pack of my Jollof as a “feel better” gift.

Kunle: I was so touched. We sat down at the venue. I opened and started eating the food right there. I hadn’t eaten all day, it was around 5 p.m., and the food smelt so good.

It tasted good too. I looked at her midway into the meal with this big smile on my face. She had a big smile on hers too.

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Was that love though?

Kunle: Yes. A version of it.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her once I got home. But I couldn’t understand why because I’d never dated a woman, ever. I actually got into my first relationship at 25 as a virgin. I believed it was because I’d only been considering women up until that point, and I never met one I was attracted to. 

Temi: Before I met him, my last relationship was in 2018. It was one of those lukewarm ones where, at the end, you don’t even know why you were together. So I was single and very ready for a relationship. By the time we were getting to know each other in that car, I was very attracted to him and so upset he was gay. But at the same time, I didn’t want to keep away.

Kunle: After the jollof rice meet-up, we went back to going to and from work in the car. So we saw each other every day of the week. When we started hanging out on weekends too, I knew that was it. We’d invite each other for family events or to see a movie together and started meeting each other’s friends. This went on till around June 2022, when I decided to try my luck and ask her out.

Temi: On our way to work, one early Monday morning, he asked me randomly. I was in shock. I was like, “I thought you were gay.” He looked a little confused when I said that, so I knew it was something he himself was still trying to figure out.

How did you handle rediscovering your sexuality and entering a new relationship at the same time?

Kunle: It was conflicting for a while, not going to lie. But in the end, I decided to just follow my instincts. For some reason, I really liked this one girl after a lifetime of liking boys. Maybe that doesn’t require an explanation.

Temi: I tried to keep an open mind too, and enjoy the process. I didn’t say yes to him right away because I wanted him to be really sure. I also wanted to process whether actually wanted to date him. It took me up to three weeks to agree. In the meantime, our budding friendship grew. I realised that beyond being attracted to him, we got along well. He was a serious person; he took the important things in life — money, work, family — seriously.

Kunle: We also like food — the one thing we both like.

Temi: That’s not true. We like swimming. But yeah, that’s all we have in common.

Are either of you ever worried he’ll get attracted to a man again?

Temi: I won’t say “worried”, but the thought enters my head sometimes. On one hand, I feel special that I’m the one woman who made him realise he’s actually bisexual not gay. But on the other hand, I have a lot of learning to do about what bisexuality entails in practice.

Kunle: I still get attracted to men actually. Doesn’t mean I’ll ever act on it. I’m fully committed to this relationship for the foreseeable future. Being gay or bisexual doesn’t mean I can’t be disciplined and stay loyal and respectful to her.

Fair enough. Do you remember what your first major fight was about?

Kunle: Oh, it was so stupid.

Temi: We fought, or rather, had an argument over last year’s Sallah meat.

Kunle: This was even before we’d fully agreed to date.

Temi: He’s Muslim. So he’d sworn to bring me a full polythene bag of ram meat. I told him to bring it raw so I could cook it very tender and make a nice sauce with it. 

What did he do? He brought the one that they’d fried hard as rock. And it wasn’t even plenty. After he had promised heaven and earth. I was already dreaming of how I was going to savour it and use it with four different meals. Oh God.

Kunle: I overhyped myself as a joke. I didn’t know she was actually taking me seriously and making plans. I just put some leftover meat together without thinking, and took it to her the next day. When she brought the meat out of the bag, she lambasted me. I’ll never forget. I felt so bad.

Temi: I didn’t speak to him for like two days. One day, he ordered ram suya to my house. That was so sweet.

What’s the best thing about being together so far?

Temi: Everything. What I love most is how I don’t feel any pressure at all. I can be myself, talk about things that interest me and be open and vulnerable, without feeling judged or disrespected.

Kunle: The best thing is how compatible we are in almost everything: mentally, sexually, even career-wise. We’re growing together. And we’re so comfortable together. I didn’t realise how uptight I was — constantly seeking validation and trying to be and look perfect — in almost all my past relationships until we got together. Thank you for that.

How would you rate your Love Life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Temi: 8. I love you so much.

Kunle: Maybe 9.

Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.

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Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

What’s your earliest memory of each other?

Tonye: I actually can’t remember. We were friends of friends for the longest time. He was a childhood friend of my closest male friend from secondary school. As we became adults, we found ourselves in the same friendship circle. 

I think the only reason why we weren’t close at first was because his family relocated to Jordan when he was in secondary school, so he’d only come back to Naija with the IJGB crowd in December. Between 2013 and 2018, you could just tell he loved the whole Detty December Lagos vibe and never missed it. 

We got to know each other better with each of his visits because we’d find ourselves at the same holiday events at least once or twice each year.

Peter: But I remember exactly when we met for the first time. It was at a mutual friend’s beach hangout in December 2011. We said hi to each other once, and that was it. The second time was when I came for summer the next year. We met briefly when your best friend came to pick up something from you on the way to a party you refused to attend.

Tonye: Oh yes. That day. I keep forgetting.

And I didn’t refuse to attend. You guys just threw the invitation at me last-minute and expected me to drop everything.

Peter: You need to embrace spontaneity more. That’s one of your weaknesses.

Deep. So when did you realise you liked each other?

Tonye: I always found him attractive, but just as a thought. By 2014, when I’d gotten used to hanging out with him. I noticed that I thought about him for a long time after we had any interaction. 

In December 2015, I was seriously looking forward to seeing him even though we weren’t really friends. He has this carefree, “sure of himself”, clever attitude that just drew me in. Before he came, I found myself asking his friend about his relationship history. That one told me he hardly ever dates or doesn’t date for long, so I told myself to calm down.

Peter: But when I came that year, we only saw once. And it’s not like she tried to reach out or even give me a clue that she liked me.

On the other hand, I was a stupid boy back then. My head wasn’t really in the space for committed relationships.

I see

Peter: It wasn’t until around March 2016, when we had this long-ass, out-of-the-blue FaceTime call that we really connected. 

We’d had a conversation on the TL about something that went viral on Twitter, and that’s when I found out she’s one of those fierce feminists. So I popped into her iMessage and asked if she wanted to FaceTime about it. I don’t even know why I asked. I found feminists curious back then, so I made it a point to have these obnoxious conversations with all my female friends who were feminists.

Tonye: Oh God.

Peter: Well, when we FaceTimed, I loved that she looked so good in her natural state. Her hair was messy, her face looked fresh, and even her bedroom voice was everything. 

And I realised she wasn’t really hardcore with her feminism. She was so cool and chill, and we went on to talk about our other interests. That’s when I considered the idea of dating her for the first time.

Tonye: But first, he just wanted to sleep with me.

Ah

Tonye: Yes. He was pretty vocal about it. But one ocean kept us apart, so nothing happened. We just kept up a long-distance friendship and got to know each other more. It was around this time in 2016 that he confided in me that he had a temper he was working on. 

He mentioned this while he was talking about an altercation he’d had at work in the US, where he’d moved to in 2010. He got so angry that his whole body hurt just from the anger. I didn’t understand it; he explained that his anger takes over his whole body sometimes, and he feels so helpless about it. I’d never heard about something like that before, so I just told him to try to see a therapist.

Peter: I was more excited than ever to come to Naij that December, and that’s when it really sank in that I might like her.

Tonye: I was nervous because I still believed he only wanted sex. At first, I told myself I didn’t mind that, but when I saw him the week before Christmas at someone’s get-together, I changed my mind. I knew I couldn’t handle just sex with him, and I told him there and then.

Peter: We both laughed and then went on to enjoy the event with our other friends. We didn’t see each other again. When it was time for me to leave in January 2017, I called her on a whim to ask if she wanted to come with me and a bunch of my friends to the airport. As usual, she claimed last-minute and refused. 

As soon as I landed in Dallas, I started missing her. Although I got back into the flow of work, my friends and relationships there, at the most unexpected moments, I’d just remember her smile or smell. It was crazy.

Please, tell me you started dating soon after

Tonye: Nope. 

Not until December 2018 when we met up at his friend’s lounge. That’s when he asked me out. I told him it wasn’t possible because we lived different lives in different continents and only saw each other once a year. He said he’d move to Nigeria to make it work. I thought he was crazy.

Peter: I wasn’t, as you can see. I honestly didn’t see it as a big deal at the time. I’d spent the first 14 years of my life in Nigeria. I still had some family and friends here, so it wasn’t that crazy of an idea to me.

Tonye: I told him to do it first. In my mind, that was it. I thought he’d never talk about it again. 

We met up twice more on some outings with friends, then I invited him to my apartment warming just before he travelled back in January 2019. I’d just moved into my very first place after living with my parents all my life. 

That was where and when we had our first kiss — a short and warm kiss that happened after he followed me into my bedroom without me noticing. We just kissed, laughed and left the room again. 

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How did things advance?

Peter: I started thinking hard about how to relocate to Nigeria without being broke and jobless. 

The first thing I did was speak to my dad about it. He didn’t freak out like I thought he would. He just advised me not to do it all at once. Instead, I could get a job or start a business in Nigeria, or do both, then gradually move my things and only quit my job in the States when I have everything settled. I did that. 

I offered to help a friend run operations at his start-up. I also used my life savings on an apartment and car I could lease for Uber if I didn’t end up making enough money to keep up a decent lifestyle. All of this took several months of me going back and forth between countries.

Tonye: I didn’t know any of this was going on at the time, mind you.

Peter: I didn’t want to tell her until I’d quit my job in Dallas and there was no going back. This was in September 2019, so when I called and said I was in Nigeria, she didn’t believe me because it wasn’t December yet. I offered to come to her not-so-new apartment to prove it.

When did you both know you’d fallen in love?

Tonye: I mean, when I found out he’d actually relocated to Nigeria. I know it wasn’t entirely for me, but still.

But you barely knew each other

Peter: And we probably never would’ve if we still lived continents apart. I just wanted to give us a chance. There was really nothing holding me back in Dallas. In fact, that city represents most of the trauma I’ve experienced in life — bullying, discrimination, addiction and more. I think I would’ve moved back sooner or later.

Tonye: I think also having a lot of mutual friends at that point helped make us feel super close. We’d been in the same circle for almost a decade at that point, so we were familiar. My mum already knew about him because he’d somehow come up in our conversations about my life.

RELATED: Love Life: I Only Proposed After I Met Her Mum

Do you remember what your first major fight was about?

Tonye: Yes. Our first major fight was major indeed. It was when I realised what he meant by having a temper. It was scary.

Tonye: I won’t get into details, but like two months after we decided to start dating in September 2019, a friend of ours invited us to a thing. The friend sent the invite through me, and I didn’t know it was because he’d had a falling out with Peter sometime before. 

The whole thing ended with us having a huge fight about it, where he went on a rampage and became another person for up to an hour. I locked myself up in his room and cried the whole evening.

Peter: I’m so sorry.

Tonye: We took a break for some weeks because the experience was so jarring.

How did you guys come back from that?

Tonye: He’s really good at begging for forgiveness, and I’ve come to realise he’s truly helpless to how he reacts to things that upset him. But before I agreed to continue dating, I made sure he committed to seeking therapy and anger management counselling.

Peter: I did it right away. It was bloody expensive but worth it. There’ve been way less episodes since then.

When you say less…

Tonye: I don’t think it’s something he can ever completely heal from because it’s triggered by some deep-set trauma we’d prefer not to get into. At many points in our relationship, I’ve questioned my decision to stay, but at the end of the day, our love and commitment to each other have grown stronger from these experiences. 

For example, the lockdown of 2020 was a huge trial and defining period in our relationship.

Peter: She’d moved in by then. I fell off a few times during the lockdown, and each time, I was so terrified she’d leave, but she didn’t. I knew I had to ask her to marry me in December 2020 when the heat had blown over a bit. Plus, December was our season. For so many years, we only ever saw in December.

Tonye: We didn’t get married for almost another year though because he worked really hard to convince me I’d be making the right decision by sticking with him despite his emotional struggles. Navigating his tempers is still a work in progress for us.

What’s the best thing about being married to each other?

Tonye: We’re sensitive and considerate of each other. This might be controversial, but I’d say I have his temper to thank for that. We don’t give room for even the slightest of anger in our home because we know how destructive it can be, so we’re constantly checking on each other, trying to do right and apologising instead of taking offence. 

Peter: And we’d rather leave the room to clear our heads, then come back and discuss touchy subjects. We don’t let it blow over just for the fun of it. My favourite thing about us is how attuned we are to each other’s pet peeves, and we have all these little things we do to calm each other down.

Tonye: Like I know you hate it when people tease or casually insult you or anyone you care about. So I try as much as possible not to.

Peter: But I also don’t like that you litter and casually stand and talk in open passageways.

Tonye: I don’t like when you just randomly shout in the house because of sports or gist, or dip your finger or cutlery in my food.

Peter: You also don’t like when I try to go on as normal after clearly offending you. It’s been my flawed attempt at keeping my temper in check for years, but I’m unlearning. 

Tonye: I also don’t like when you skinny-shame me.

How would you rate your Love Life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Peter: 10. I’m so lucky you’ve decided time and time again to stick around.

Tonye: 10. It’s a blessing to watch you slowly grow and heal, and see how committed you are to doing better.

Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.

LOVED THIS? TRY THIS: Love Life: I Never Thought I’d Be Open to an Open Relationship

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

How did you two meet?

Bamidele: It was something like a blind date in 2018. 

A female friend at the office had been telling me about her for some months. But I didn’t want to get someone’s number and start getting to know them over the phone. And I’d been too busy with work and personal projects to follow her to hang out with them. 

Finally, she asked me out for drinks even though she was in a committed relationship. I knew she wanted me to meet the person she’d been trying to hook me up with, so I was like, “Let me just finally meet this person.” I went along with it, and that’s how we met.

Joyce: It was completely blind for me. I didn’t know this friend of ours wanted to introduce me to anyone. I went to this lounge innocently and found myself on a blind date. It was the first time I’d ever been in that kind of situation. The friend left us, and we just sat there, talking a bit, trying to be cool.

Sounds like it was awkward

Joyce: Kind of. We weren’t really giving each other a chance. I don’t think we thought we’d ever see each other again.

Bamidele: That’s not true. I thought you were chill and wouldn’t have minded seeing you again.

Joyce: But you didn’t even ask for my number or socials.

Bamidele:  I was absentminded. I guess a part of me knew I could get that from our friend, which I did much later.

So what happened after the first date?

Joyce: We didn’t see each other until our friend invited me for a get-together on her boyfriend’s street like two months later, and he was there. 

About an hour after I arrived, we somehow drifted to each other and said hi. He told me he got my number from our friend and asked if he could call me later. I said he was free to. I remember thinking, “Why is this one forming?”

Bamidele: I wasn’t forming o. I was just extremely busy because my job at the time was killing me with work. I probably didn’t have any social activity between our blind date and that second meeting. My life was pretty much work and sleep that year.

Joyce: Anyway, he didn’t call until the following week. 

He just called one Saturday night while I was watching Netflix. I almost didn’t pick up, but thank God for Truecaller. When I saw his name, I was surprised and really curious. We talked for like 30 seconds, then he said he’d chat me up on WhatsApp. Like an hour later, I got the ping, and that’s how we chatted on and off for the rest of the night. We talked about his work, my family, his trips out of Lagos and the movie I was watching.

Bamidele: It was a nice, light conversation. I like the way she answered and asked questions.

Joyce: But then, that was it for another month.

Bamidele: I had a huge project at work for the rest of the month, so I couldn’t really reach out.

Hmm. When did you now realise you liked each other?

Bamidele: The next month, I called and apologised for ghosting, and she made a joke out of it. I was like, “Why na?” I asked her if she wanted to hang out soon. We ended up going out for ice cream the next day, and I realised she could make a joke or witty statement out of anything. I thought that was really cool. 

When we hung out again a week later, I found myself expecting the next joke and almost predicting the kind of statement she’d make every time I said something. Also, I noticed she had such a beautiful smile. I couldn’t not smile when she smiled.

Joyce: Meanwhile, I only make jokes like that when I’m nervous. My jokes help me cover my social anxiety, but I’m glad you find that beautiful. 

I can’t tell when or how I started liking him. I just did. The first thing I admired about him was how serious he is about work. He’s so focused, and that’s why he’s now making plenty money for us. Also, he’s cute in that bookish way that’s so adorable. Lastly, he’s really smart. He helped me read for and pass one of my ICAN exams in 2019, and all my other exams since then.

That’s very important

Bamidele: That only happened after we started dating sha. Would I study for an exam with you if I don’t like you? No. 

After we’d hung out about three times, I wanted to make it official. I asked her out during a beach hangout with my friends.

Joyce: It was really romantic but private; nobody knew he was asking me out. He took me out towards the water, and I was so happy when he said the words. Maybe it was the lagoon breeze blowing my head. I just accepted without even thinking twice.

When did like turn to love?

Joyce: I actually don’t know.

Bamidele: You never seem to know. 

Joyce: Maybe because I’m always thinking of love as that over-the-top thing they describe in romance novels. Ours is very normal.

Bamidele: Wow. Ok o. Me too, I don’t know. 

I just know that towards the end of 2019, I was ready to get married, so I started thinking deeply about our relationship and where it was going. Should I propose or not? 

I was about to ask you to just move in with me when I met your mother.

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Huh?

Joyce: My father is no longer in the picture, so it’s just my mum and I. One day in January 2020, she insisted on meeting this guy I’d been claiming to date for over a year. I just told him, “My mum wants to meet you o. Will you come to my house?” Of course, he’d been to my house many times before, but only when my mother wasn’t around. I don’t even know why.

Bamidele: I eventually went with her to meet her mum, and as soon as I met her, I knew I wanted to marry Joyce. 

No, my mother-in-law is a beautiful and kind woman. The way she treated me like I was already her son? She’d prepared a whole feast for us — amala and abula with ogufe and panla fish. She also bakes, so she made this moist chocolate cake with real chocolate in five slim layers. Then there were the juicy bananas she grew herself in her backyard. 

I can’t even describe how full I was by the time I left the house that day. And we talked and talked about everything from work, business and the state of the country, to football and celebrity gist. She’s so easygoing, I can’t believe she’s a Yoruba mother. 

By the time, I left the house, I was sure Joyce was the one for me, LOL. 

Joyce: Thank you, Mummy.

How did the proposal and wedding go? 

Bamidele: I took her back to the same beach for the proposal, but this time, it was just the two of us. Nothing too dramatic — I got on one knee and had a nice ring that cost me my whole salary for a month.

Joyce: Sweet.

Bamidele: The proposal was in February 2020, and before we could say, “Jack” or start thinking of family introductions, COVID started. Next thing we knew, lockdown.

We did the introductions right after the restrictions were lifted, in May/June, and took it slow from then on.

Joyce: My mum handled the wedding planning. She chose the aso-ebi and everything; she was in her element. I was kind of happy it couldn’t be as huge as she would’ve wanted because of COVID. I’ve always secretly wanted a quiet, close-knit ceremony. We had less than 20 people at the church and like 50/60 people at the traditional and reception — mostly close family members and our bestest friends. God did it.

Amen. What was your first major fight about?

Joyce: We actually don’t fight.

Bamidele: We’ve never fought. 

Joyce: It’s so strange. We always look at each other when people say things like “Everyone fights, even people who are deeply in love”. But that’s never been us.

You mean, you’ve never disagreed?

Bamidele: Not really. Not in the real sense. We might want different things a lot, but we always come to some sort of agreement, and that has never led to a fight or quarrel.

Joyce: I just hope if it eventually happens, it won’t end up being an explosive one. 

Bamidele: But I don’t think so. We’re not the kind of people to have explosive fights if at all. I’ve never had an explosive fight with anyone, why would I now have one with my wife?

Fair enough. How has this relationship been different from past ones?

Bamidele: Now that I think about it, the lack of fights. 

Also, how involved my mother-in-law is. She’s very present, offering advice and helping us manage our finances. It may sound weird, but it’s so convenient. She takes the burden of taking care of our son off us completely. My own mother is jealous, but she lives all the way in Ilorin. I don’t want to uproot her from the life she’s established there.

Joyce: For me, it’s the fact that we’re married. I’ve never been married before. That’s definitely different. This is for life now.

What’s the best thing about being married to each other?

Joyce: Being able to leverage each other’s strengths. 

For example, our combined earning power has helped us carry out many projects I doubt I’d have been able to see through on my own. We’ve just made a down payment for a property in Ibeju Lekki, and we’re about to buy land in Osapa London. I’ve always wanted to own property, but I honestly don’t think I could’ve done it alone.

Also, we get to use each other’s networks to get ahead at work and scale our businesses. As I mentioned earlier, his advanced knowledge has helped me pass many certification exams I would’ve been cracking my head to pass on my own. Combining our knowledge makes us twice as smart. He’s more or less my career mentor.

Bamidele: Everything she said plus the constant companionship. 

I also want to add that her mother has been a great addition to my life. She makes things so easy between us without being a burden in any way. She’s loving, supportive and great with our son.

How would you rate your love life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Joyce: I think he loves my mum too much, so I’ll say 6 or 7.

Bamidele: Wow. I’m sorry o. For me, 8. But I think it can only get better.

Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.

RECOMMENDED: Love Life: We Married “Small Small” Over the Course of a Decade

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

How did you two meet?

Uduak: I met him through my brother-in-law. He told me an old friend of his was looking for someone to marry, and he thought we’d get along well. This was sometime in 2009. He asked me if he could share my number, and I said yes.

JJ: I got her number and called her that night. We agreed to meet later in the week during my off day. I used to work with a family to take care of their house, make sure everything was running and working well 24/7 and run some major errands for them. 

We met after church service on a Sunday afternoon. I went to her church to pick her up, and we went to eat in an eatery in Calabar South. I bought us some snacks and two bottles of Fanta — every time our lastborn hears this story, he says that’s why he loves Fanta so much. 

My first impression of her in her choir uniform — and the way she spoke as we talked in the eatery — was good.

Uduak: We didn’t stay there for long. Once we ate the snacks and talked for some minutes, he told me of his intentions to start seeing me, with the bottom line being for us to get married. I was a little concerned because I’d just finished from the polytechnic a month before that and was still struggling to find work. But he said he didn’t mind, so my mind became at rest. 

He eventually helped me get a job as his boss’s neighbour’s stay-at-home nanny.

When did you realise you liked each other?

JJ: As soon as I heard her voice that first night on the phone, I knew I liked her. She has a sweet, gentle voice that calms me every time she talks, even till today. Meeting her for the first time only made me sure about it.

Uduak: I think I liked him when we first met, but it took some time for me to be sure. After seeing each other once a week then twice and thrice a week, I began to long to see him. That’s how I knew something was happening between us.

JJ: After she got the job with my neighbours — I used to stay in my boss’s BQ — they started complimenting her, saying she was a good girl, and they noticed the difference in how their baby behaved since she started taking care of her. This made me know she would be a good wife and take care of our children well. I started liking her even more. 

READ ALSO: Love Life: I’m Not Gay, but I Love Her

When did like turn to love?

JJ: When we started spending more time together. After about two or three months, she started coming to visit more often, and she would bring food, or manage my small bachelor’s gas top to cook something fresh for me in the BQ. I loved the time and care she put into these meals, often spending her own money to make them rich. 

She would sleep over at my place on her off days. When they clashed with my own off days, we had time to talk and get to know each other even more. By the end of that year — five months after we started seeing each other — I was ready to propose, so I went to talk to my elder brother about her.

Uduak: It was the way he always looked out for me, helped me run errands or take care of my younger ones who used to come around sometimes when he was free. He’d even make time to accompany me to places I didn’t want to go alone. He was always there for me. And then, he helped me get my first job with that nice family. That showed real love and care, so I had no choice but to fall in love. 

He also helped my family out in any little way he could, sending me and my siblings ₦2k here and there. He tried his best from early on in our relationship. I also did the best I could to make sure he was happy and comfortable.

Great

JJ: One thing I loved that she did was decorate my room in those early months. She brought some nicely framed pictures to put on my walls, some artificial flowers and those solid air fresheners in boxes. She also made new bedsheets and curtains for me. 

Uduak: I trained as a tailor while I was in poly, so it was the least I could do. I wanted to make his place look as best as it could.

JJ: For my first birthday while we were together, she got one of my pictures and framed it for me as a gift. It was the best gift I’d ever received at that point. I actually cried a little when I saw it.

What was your first major fight about?

Uduak: After I got pregnant, my aunty who was my primary guardian in Calabar, asked me to move in with him. He wasn’t happy about it because he didn’t think the BQ was okay for us to live together. He was also concerned about what his boss would think. 

But my aunty told other family members about the pregnancy, and they didn’t trust him. They thought he was trying to avoid taking responsibility, and I was being a fool. My aunty told me, “You think I no know say you dey sleep for that same BQ when you dey off, instead of coming back to this house? So why the place suddenly no okay for you now wey you don carry belle?” 

I did as they said and pack into his house in February 2010.

How did that go?

JJ: I’d already decided to marry her, but I was still putting money together to leave my oga’s house and start a small printing business. I was doing it small small, printing cards and other corporate items for the company where my boss worked. But I had to share most of the profit with him, and I didn’t have time to push the business while working with him at home. 

I had other side work I was doing while saving towards the business and marriage expenses, but I wasn’t making enough to take care of a family yet. While I was planning towards it, the baby came some months too early. I wish she and her family had been more patient with me. Living together in my oga’s BQ wasn’t the plan at all.

Uduak: The night I moved in, he didn’t come home. I didn’t see him till my next off day, which was two weeks later. I could tell he was still angry. Things were rough between us during the first month of my stay, and I was scared. But after a while, it became better, and we started talking properly. 

When did he finally propose?

Uduak: He didn’t really propose. About four months after I moved in, he and his people went to see my parents in the village. They agreed to let him marry me but gave him a list of things he needed to do first.

JJ: Everything in that list cost about ₦500k that year, which is like ₦1.5m in today’s money. I didn’t have that kind of money. So I had to work for over a year to raise it. I would buy the different things small small and send them to her village — one goat here, two two cartons of stout, just like that. 

During that time, the baby came, and we had to move to our own place. We also had to leave our jobs, so things were tight. I started pushing the printing business small small and doing some buying and selling. My brothers and one of my uncles also chipped in. 

But before we could finally go to the village and do the traditional wedding, she was pregnant again. We did the ceremony anyway because I didn’t feel good carrying on with her in my home, already starting a family without marrying her properly. I wanted her and her family to know I valued her. She’s a good woman.

Uduak: When we finally went to my village, I could tell he was happy. His face was glowing. He felt proud that he could buy me my traditional attire with the thick beads, headgear and makeup. And I was also happy that he made all that effort for me. 

It reminded me of Jacob in the Bible, and how he went above and beyond for Rachael.

JJ: The traditional ceremony drained my pocket.

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It was for a good cause. How has this relationship been different from past ones?

JJ: This was my first relationship where I said, “I’m ready to be serious and settle down,” before I even went into it. So the way I approached everything was different. 

In my past relationships, it was just “This is my girlfriend. Let’s have fun and go crazy. Who cares?” But with her, it’s, “This is my wife. She will be the mother of my children.” Her welfare and happiness have always been my priority, so instead of thinking fun, fun, fun, I’m always thinking, “Are you okay? Am I making you happy?” 

It was like that from the first day.

Uduak: That’s true. When I started seeing him, there was this gentleness and respect he accorded me that made me feel loved. 

I had two boyfriends while I was in the polytechnic, but my relationship with JJ made me feel like they didn’t care about me. They just used me to pass time, and that’s why both of those relationships ended so easily. They were going nowhere. This relationship is the first one where the man knew he wanted something serious out of it and worked to get it. 

And he has worked really hard for me and our family. I do my best to match his strength and hard work.

What’s the most unconventional thing about your relationship?

Uduak: Even though we had the traditional wedding in 2012, do you know we did white wedding only two years ago? I know many people will say why did we bother after so long? I’ve always wanted to be married before God, so I made him promise that we will one day. I wanted us to have a proper church wedding and a reception after, like everyone else. 

I know it might sound like I’m greedy.

JJ: She’s not greedy. It’s always been her dream, and I encouraged her to hope for it. I didn’t want to deny her that. It’s money that made it take so long. I want to give her everything that’ll make her happy.

Uduak: Thank you.

JJ: After all, we didn’t go to the registry until 2018, so time is only a number.

You mean, a court wedding? Why did it take you that long?

JJ: We thought we’d do it together with the white wedding, but we kept postponing. 

One day, her aunty called me and started shouting, “You mean you people no go court sign paper? That means say you never legally marry? You just dey play with my daughter. Anything happen now, you go bring another wife chase her and her pikin comot.” I was so embarrassed, but what she said made sense. We were being irresponsible. 

When I went to my brother about it, he was shocked we hadn’t done it yet. So I made some enquiries, and we went to Calabar Municipal with her aunty and my eldest brother as witnesses. 

Uduak: Our three kids at the time witnessed it, too. Bobo was only one year old then.

What’s the best thing about being married to each other?

Uduak: I finally have someone to take care of me. I’ve been alone for too long since I moved to Calabar after secondary school when I was just 16. I had my aunty, who took care of me as best she could, but she wasn’t that caring. And some of my siblings also moved in and out of Calabar, but we haven’t really been together since we all left the village. 

Being married gives me my own family I can love and nurture how I want.

JJ: Having your own family can be comforting because you can run it how you see fit and make sure everyone is together. It comes with its struggles, especially when you’re the man of the house and it’s your responsibility to bring money home. But I take the responsibility wholeheartedly, and we’ve built a beautiful family.

Uduak: Yes, we have four beautiful children now. And it’s not always easy, but they make everything worth it.

How would you rate your love life on a scale of 1 to 10?

JJ: 10

Uduak: 10

Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.

RELATED: Love Life: He Taught Me to Be Less Controlling

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

How did you meet?

Nonye: During NYSC in 2021. We served at the same PPA in Kogi State and happened to both be coming from Enugu.

Jojo: We were teachers in the same secondary school. I taught maths, science and business studies; she taught English and CRS. And our rooms were beside each other at the corpers lodge. But eventually, we talked our roommates into switching so we could stay together. 

The first day we met, she was reporting to the school two weeks late because she’d asked the state coordinator for permission to go back to Enugu after returning from the orientation camp. I later found out she’d lost her mother just before NYSC started.

Nonye: Yes. But I tried to suppress the grief for a while. 

We didn’t get to meet in camp, but she was the only corper who didn’t have a class when I reported to the school. She offered to help me carry my things to the lodge, which wasn’t close by, especially since we had to go on foot. We didn’t say a word to each other the entire way — the sun was too hot for that — but as soon as we got into my room, Jojo started asking me a thousand questions about myself. 

Jojo: I’m like that. I love to get to know people. 

We became friends from that first day because she was so nice and open, answering all my questions and asking back too. We related to each other’s stories because we lived in the same Enugu town. By the time I left her to settle in while I went to teach my next class for that day, I felt good knowing I had someone I could hang out with. 

NYSC was such a beautiful time because we did everything together. We even split bills and expenses. We were like sisters separated at birth.

Did you start liking each other during NYSC?

Jojo: As friends, yes. We had a strong connection, but we weren’t thinking in a romantic direction at that time. I didn’t even know I was gay then.

Nonye: Nothing happened romantically until after she came out to me on New Year’s Day in 2022. When she told me she was gay, I said, “I know.” I feel like I knew she was gay before she did. Don’t ask me how. I just know when she told me, I wasn’t surprised at all. I was happy for her for finally finding herself.

Jojo: When I came to terms with my sexuality, she was the first person on my mind I wanted to date, but I was too scared of ruining our friendship. We were back in Enugu but still as close as ever. We’re both working a 9 to 5, but we help each other with our side gigs too. I’m a freelance photographer, and she runs a thrift and crochet store online. 

Before I could find the nerve to ask her to date me, I got with a girl I met on Twitter who also lived in Enugu, and we dated for some months. Nonye was super supportive, so they became friends too. 

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When did friendship turn to love?

Jojo: My dad passed away in March 2022, and the grief was much. So we bonded over her understanding of what it feels like to lose a parent. She was there for me throughout the preparation, burial and mourning period. My girlfriend couldn’t be there because I hadn’t come out to my family. 

I kept to myself a lot during those three or so months it took me to recover from the loss, but Nonye was always there for me, sleeping over, sharing what helped her heal when her mother died. I liked her then more than ever. When my ex broke things up with me in June 2022, because I wasn’t showing enough commitment to her, I started thinking about asking Nonye to be my girlfriend once again.

Nonye: I still loved Jojo as a friend but didn’t think beyond that until the day she shakily asked me out when we’d gone to the cinema to watch Thor: Love and Thunder. I told her I wasn’t gay, and she said she knew. 

Later that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about her asking me out. We spoke the next morning, and she didn’t bring it up again. I was upset about that, but I also didn’t bring it up until some days later when I said I really liked her too. I didn’t know what I was doing or what to expect, so I was scared about what I said. But I knew it was true. 

She had this wide, bright, beautiful smile on her face when I looked at her again. I know it sounds cheesy, but I’d never seen her smile like that before. I’d always loved Jojo, but that’s when I realised I really liked her too. Without needing to ask each other again, we just started dating from then on. 

One of the things that’s happened in the last several months is that we spend and plan our money as a unit, even our side gigs have unified.

What was your first major fight about?

Nonye: We have this on-and-off argument — not necessarily fight — because I always insist I’m not gay when it comes up in private. But it’s true. I’m not. She’s the only girl I’ve ever been attracted to. Generally, I still find boys attractive. If god forbid, we break up, I’d most likely be with a guy. 

Jojo: It feels like it should make me happy, but it makes me sad, and I don’t know why. I know I have no reason to think this because she’s the most devoted and loyal partner to me, but I keep getting this uncertainty that I’m just a phase to her.

Nonye: You’re not. I want us to last forever, but if we don’t, it won’t be because I see you as a phase. You know that’s not true.

Jojo: I do. But I still think if you’re dating your gender, you’re gay sha. 

Actually, she could be. How has this relationship been different from past ones?

Jojo: It’s my first truly mature relationship. Before Nonye, I’d had mostly unserious relationships (school flings) with guys. 

My first girlfriend was great, but being with Nonye now, I realise we were quite childish. Our five-and-a-half-month relationship consisted of going out to get shawarma together every weekend, making out and arguing over the most basic things. It was like we were doing it for fun; nothing more. 

With Nonye, we still do shawarma and make out, but we also talk a lot about important things like work, spending, personal development and even our relationships with other people. We advise each other a lot and look out for each other.

Nonye: I’ve only dated two people in this life. One was in high school and another in university — we broke up sometime during NYSC. But Jojo is the only one who’s met almost everyone in my family. Although, it’s only my immediate elder sister who knows we’re intimate. That has changed the stakes a lot. 

This relationship is pretty mature; we take the commitment seriously.

What’s the most unconventional thing about your relationship?

Jojo: I don’t want to say us being gay so as not to alert the LGBT police, but I don’t know any other gay couples, so I think it still counts. I think it’s also unconventional to be a gay person dating a straight person.

Nonye: That shows just how strong our love is.

Jojo: Right.

How has the relationship changed you?

Jojo: Dating Nonye has helped me let my guard down. I feel like I can trust her completely with my heart and things like life decisions. She’s a truly wise, intuitive person, so that has rubbed off on me a bit. These days, I find myself thinking the way she thinks, which is by checking if the vibe is right before jumping into things. 

This can be as little as if I should go somewhere, talk to someone or not, eat at this restaurant or another. And the vibe check has never failed me. My relationship with my mother has also improved greatly since. She’s taught me to appreciate what I have before I lose it.

Nonye: I’d actually say the same about my relationship with my dad, although it’s just occurring to me. 

Besides that, I’ve become a lot more enterprising since we got together, since we became friends actually. I don’t see how our businesses would grow the way they do without your sense. I’m more attuned to making profit now. Soft life loading. 

Oh also, this is the first relationship in which I’m so comfortable with being open and vulnerable. We’re always oversharing with each other.

How would you rate your love life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Nonye: 8. We’re still fresh. Our first anniversary is next month, and I’m so excited, but it still feels like we’re in the honeymoon stage.

Jojo: 8. I guess what she’s saying is we should revisit this rating after we celebrate a year.

Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.

RECOMMENDED: Love Life: He Taught Me to Be Less Controlling

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

What’s your earliest memory of each other?

Onose: Arguing online. 

One of my Facebook friends had posted about supporting a certain presidential candidate — I won’t mention names — sometime in 2015. Misan commented in support under the post, and I just went at him, criticising him for supporting such a person. 

I didn’t know him at the time. He was just a mutual through the person who originally posted.

Misan: I was upset that someone who didn’t know me could have such strong opinions of me because of who I chose to support, so we had a long back and forth in the comments for the whole day. 

My friend who made the original post had to enter my inbox to tell me to stop cluttering his notifications with my “wife”. I found his statement funny, so I asked if he knew Onose personally, saying, “Why is her blood so hot?” He said they were old friends from his former workplace, but he only had good things to say about her: she was a hard worker; smart and efficient. 

I admired that so I slid into her inbox to say hi to my opp.

Onose: I wasn’t very active on Facebook, even though I spent a whole day fighting with him on the platform. So I didn’t see his message for another week. He sent something like “Hi. Sorry for making you so angry over our leaders. My apologies, ma.” When I realised it was the guy I’d given a large piece of my mind, I laughed and replied with “Apology NOT accepted.” 

But like that, we continued chatting on and off for the next two to three years.

Wawu. When did you realise you liked each other?

Onose: We got so close as chat friends over time that we started involving each other in mundane things happening in our lives.

But things got more serious when we followed each other on Instagram in 2017. I used to sing, so anytime I participated in a challenge or contest that required voting, even giveaways, I’d tag him to vote for me. He always voted and would even get his guys to vote too.

He was always there with encouraging words when I was going through rough patches or feeling discouraged. Of course, I had other friends in real life who were just as supportive, but there was something particularly caring about his approach. Interestingly, we’d never met in person at that point. 

Misan: My company had posted me to Kano in 2013, so I was there for much of those three years while she was in Lagos. When I finally moved to Ibadan at the beginning of 2018, I really wanted to see her. I took a chance and asked if she wanted to meet sometime. She was hesitant, so it took another month or two before we met up at a lounge on the island. 

I remember my bus ride down from Ibadan, I was thinking, “What the hell am I doing? And why do I feel so nervous doing it?” 

God, abeg

Onose: He was cute in his pictures, but I kept thinking, “What if he’s catfishing sha?” So before I even agreed to meet, I reached out to our old mutual friend. I asked him about Misan: if he’s how he looks in his photos, stuff like that. Nothing he said gave me cause for alarm, and Misan had been a good well-behaved online friend so far. But for some reason, I had my guard up. 

I was pleasantly surprised when we met. He was even better looking than his pictures, and our conversations were smooth. We even revisited stuff we’d already discussed over the years, just to talk about it in person. 

Did you bring back the Facebook fight too?

Onose: That was already way behind us. He teases me about it now that we’re married, but it never came up while we were dating.

Later that night, we went out and hung out with my friends at the club. By the time I returned home, I knew I liked him a lot.

Misan: I returned to Ibadan the next day. On the bus ride back, I decided I’d ask her to be my girlfriend and see what she’d say. I don’t even know why. I just knew I really like everything about her; from the way she talked to the way she walked.

That didn’t happen for another two weeks though. I was scared. For one, she’d spoken out against long-distance relationships more than once. But I finally asked her over a phone call one evening, and she surprised me by saying yes.

Onose: I liked him and didn’t mind giving us a chance.

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When did you know you’d fallen in love?

Misan: I can’t really pin it down. We got used to each other more and more over time. Before we knew it, our relationship had lasted longer than my previous relationships. 

During the heat of COVID in 2020, I lost my job and moved to Lagos to freelance as a real estate agent for a while. I made considerably less money for about seven months, especially when I took out the perks my old company offered besides my salary, which meant I had even more expenses. 

The way she came through for me, paying for some of my bills and randomly sending me small ₦10k here and there blew my mind. We’d been dating for two years by then, but it took a special kind of kindness for her to be that giving. I actually expected her to break up with me, or slowly ghost me being a newly broke man and all. But she did the opposite.

I already loved her, but that experience made me appreciate her more.

Onose: For me, it was our first anniversary in 2019. He came in from Ibadan for us to have a weekend getaway at Radisson. I remember just looking at him the next morning after we checked in, and thinking, “I love this guy. I really love this guy.” My mind was like “It’s over for you with this guy.” Do you get?

Can’t relate. And as a hater, I want to know what your first major fight was about

Onose: We actually fought some weeks after we first started dating. It was a phone fight. 

Misan: Oh. Not that day.

Onose: That morning, I was checking in on him as usual, asking what his plans were for the day. He told me he’d leave the office to run some errands around his guy’s wedding happening that weekend. He was going to be the best man. When he described the logistics of his errands, it didn’t make sense to me to go through so much stress for someone else’s wedding, especially since it’d heavily affect his work for the day. 

Misan: I wanted to. Me and the guy go way back.

Onose: I discouraged him, reminding him that he’d probably be too tired to do much work that day. His company at the time was very target-based. 

He told me he’d heard, but the way he said it, I knew he’d still go ahead, so I called him multiple times during the day to remind him not to do too much.

Why now?

Misan: She’s even putting it nicely. She kept calling, vehemently telling me not to go to so and so place, if I really plan on taking a danfo or making sure I hadn’t left before meeting my morning targets. It was my first time experiencing her controlling side — the side that’d make her passionately argue with a stranger online for hours. 

At one point, I temporarily blocked her because I was tired. I had to talk to her firmly about it that evening. She had good intentions, but I told her to just let me make my own decisions in the end. 

It’s still a work in progress, but she’s a lot more tolerant now.

Onose: Thank you. But why did you block me?

Misan: Omo, my team lead was beginning to give me side eye because of all the calls.

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OMG. But how has this relationship been different from past ones?

Misan: I’d never dated anyone I met online before her.

Onose: I’d never been in a long-distance relationship before Misan because I’d heard too many bad stories. I’d dated someone I met online, although we met in person through my cousin a long time before that sha.

2018 to 2023 seems like a long time. Why did it take you guys that long to marry?

Misan: The long distance was a huge factor. We lived in different cities, but we could visit each other often because Lagos isn’t that far from Ibadan. So there was no urgency to make a concrete plan to be closer. That in turn slowed our relationship down. 

Onose: We were too comfortable. 

COVID and his moving to Lagos changed the stakes a lot, and in some ways, our relationship really kicked off from then, even though we already loved each other. Does that make sense?

I think so. So how did a proposal happen?

Misan: I asked her to marry me as soon as I got a job in November 2020. 

It was a really good job with triple my previous pay. And I wouldn’t have gotten it without her. She pushed me to take all sorts of professional courses, not only to increase my employment opportunities but also to defend the widening gap in my CV. 

I wouldn’t have gotten the job and my current career trajectory without those courses. She’s a true gem. I knew I needed her in my life for the long haul, but I also needed to be in a good place with a stable job to take that step.

Onose: He literally proposed the evening of his first day. It shocked me when he casually came to my house and presented the ring. I wasn’t expecting it at all.

Before you ask, the engagement lasted two years because my mother passed away about six months later. I went into depression; I was in grief for almost a year. I couldn’t imagine having a wedding without my mother. We’d dreamt of my wedding day for too long, and I beat myself up for taking my sweet time with it.

I couldn’t even think of a wedding till almost a year after, in 2022. And Misan was patient through all that. I’m so grateful I didn’t have to go through that alone.

I’m so so sorry. 

What’s the best thing about being married?

Misan: The promise of a lifetime together. Our relationship feels more solid. Also, finally moving in together after so long.

Onose: Having someone to assist me in everything. We get to be there for each other for real, like literally always be there for each other. It can be overwhelming sometimes, but I love it. 

Five months in, and I’ve learnt to be less controlling. Misan has helped me see I can’t control everything; people want to be able to think for themselves despite your advice and how much you think you know.

Misan: And she’s taught me to be less laidback about my life. I know how far I’ve come career-wise and in my personal projects thanks to her OCD. 

How would you rate your Love Life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Onose: 8. 

Misan: 12 (I take her remaining 2 and add to my 10). I couldn’t have asked for a better, more supportive significant other.

Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.

READ NEXT: Love Life Special: Mina’s Side of the Story

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

Please, take it from the top. How did you meet Daniel?

We met at work in 2018. We used to work in different departments of a bank’s head office. I was in marketing, he was in IT, and if you’re familiar with how banks work, you know these two departments liaise often. 

I met him when I had an issue to resolve for a client. I went to his department, and the task was assigned to him. It took us two months to sort out the issue, and that’s how we started talking every other day. I was drawn to his reserved personality from the beginning. When we finally resolved the problem, he sent me a bottle of wine to celebrate, and I thought it was really nice of him.

If you don’t know what we’re talking about, read this first: Love Life: We Married a Year After He Almost Married My Twin

Nice. How did things progress?

I admired that he didn’t try to flirt or act inappropriately when we worked together, which guys did a lot. They may not necessarily harass you, but they always want to get familiar too quickly once they know you’re a girl they’ll be working closely with for some time. I liked that he was respectful and understood boundaries. 

Some weeks after the whole thing, my mum was marking her 50th birthday with a big party, and my siblings and I were encouraged to invite all our friends. When I was scrolling through my contact list, I saw his name and remembered how cordial he was, so I invited him on a whim.

When did you start dating?

It was a gradual process, TBH. At the party, he was really cool. He came right on time while others came late, and he stayed till the end. He was respectful to my family and was the only friend who brought my mum a gift — a china plate set. My parents still use it in their house today. It was so lovely. 

After that, we started talking. I’d just come out of a one-year relationship, so I wasn’t really in a hurry. But things became official in March 2019, when we went on our first proper date.

Had he met Somi by this time?

Yes, they met briefly at my mum’s birthday. But they didn’t really meet till my birthday hangout in July. We all went to the beach with a couple of our friends. They got along well. Daniel is naturally a kind, caring person. His parents raised him well, and I don’t say that lightly. He’s one of the most respectful people I know. 

After our beach hangout, we started having double dates once in a while; us, Somi and her boyfriend. The hangouts happened naturally when we found someplace cool to hang and we wanted to share the moment with other people without making it too complicated by inviting our friends.

Got it. How did your relationship with Daniel go in general? 

It went well. Special days like my birthday, Valentine, Christmas, were even more special with him because he’s an intentional and thoughtful person. Sometimes, he’d do grand gestures like when he sent gift and food baskets with trumpeters to my office on our first Valentine’s together in 2020. Other times, he’d just send meaningful gifts. Our first Christmas together in 2019, he got me knee and wrist supports because I started going to the gym some weeks earlier. 

Did you know he’d propose when he did?

Yes and no. Things were going well for about two years before he popped the question, so it was definitely at the back of my mind that we might get married. But we didn’t really discuss it beforehand.

Our lives had become intertwined such that we were always either together or chatting randomly over the phone. I switched banks a year into our relationship, but we were both still in the banking sector and worked on the island, so it was easy to navigate our relationship with work. And he got along well with everyone in my family. I found it so easy to introduce him to everyone.

Why then didn’t it work out in the end?

See, Daniel is a good guy to have as a boyfriend in general. But was he a good guy for me in particular? I don’t think so. We didn’t really have much in common. I love to go out and be outside. It’s pretty important to me to attend events, both social and work-related, to meet people, explore places; I even love just driving around. I visit people a lot and love celebrating with them. 

Daniel doesn’t mind these things, but he also loves solitude a lot. He loves to read; I can never get past five pages of a book. I’m also an active person, and if you’re a regular gym person, you know the lifestyle is pretty exciting. The gym is a great place to network too. Well, Daniel is a real couch potato. You can’t get him to run for his salvation. 

These things weren’t really a big deal at first, but as soon as we got engaged, it became more obvious that we couldn’t really gist about things. He always wanted to talk about movies or books or something he found out online to do with tech, science, celebrities. I only ever wanted to talk about the things happening around us, like what happened at work or at that restaurant I went to, or on the road to his house. A lot of times, we had nothing to offer each other when one person is talking about what interests them.

But why did that become obvious only after the engagement?

It was always obvious, but it didn’t choke me until the thought of a lifetime together started hanging in the air. We spent even more time together, and I started seeing him come to life more with certain other people. Yes, including Somi. He had a lot in common with her, and they could always engage in conversation on a deeper level than we could. 

But she wasn’t the reason I broke off the engagement. It was the deeper realisation that our connection was on a surface level. We liked each other a lot, and I wanted someone that caring and loyal in my corner, but did I really love him? I started questioning myself a lot as the d-day got closer.

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What was the defining moment for you that made it clear you had to end it?

I woke up the morning of my bridal shower, and my heart was heavy. I just knew I couldn’t go through with it anymore. I was no longer excited about marrying Daniel. There’s no other way to explain it. And I didn’t want to allow what people might say to make me enter something so permanent. So I went to his house, and I explained this to him. We had a long conversation about it, and his emotional reaction almost made me change my mind, but I had to be strong. Changing my mind out of pity would’ve been the worst thing to do anyway. 

True. But how did you feel when your sister told you she was now seeing him? 

I won’t lie, I was upset. I couldn’t believe it when she told me, but my sister and I mean a lot to each other. We’ve been through so much together, and I know her more than anyone in this world. I know she didn’t have a drop of bad will against me when she started getting close to Daniel. She said nothing had happened between them and nothing would if I told her I wouldn’t accept it. And I believed her. 

Can I ask why?

Daniel and Somi have so much in common. They’re both too nice for their own good and very bookish. They used to chat about movies for hours on end when I was the one dating him, and it was so cool to watch how excited they’d get. I knew it was hurting Somi to even ask me about it, knowing fully well that their relationship would be unconventional given my recent history with him. I didn’t want to be the one to put her through further misery. 

Would I have preferred her to connect so deeply with someone besides my ex? Yes, of course. But do I think they had a natural connection that had nothing to do with me? Absolutely. Why would I keep them apart just out of spite?

Fair enough. What’s it like being in their lives now that they’re married?

It was weird at first, not just watching them be in love, but also seeing them hold back their affection because they didn’t want me to be uncomfortable. But I didn’t linger on the weirdness. My extended family also gives them a lot of heat, especially Somi. So I’d say they’ve paid for their “sins”. Just kidding. We’re all good. We’ve started to hang out more this year since I got engaged again.

About that. What was it like recovering from one engagement and getting into another?

It was rough, but I pulled through. I actually dated someone for about four months before I got together with my fiance. That relationship didn’t last because it was just me trying to find someone as fun-loving to attend all the events I’d missed while I was with Daniel. It wasn’t very deep, so it fizzled out just as easily as it started. 

I wasn’t really looking when I met my fiance. I was a bit down when Somi started dating Daniel because I suddenly missed him always being there for me. You can say I was in a vulnerable state, so a new relationship was the last thing on my mind. In fact, I threw myself into work. And again, that’s where I found a man.

Tell us about it, please

In 2022, I got a new job at a fintech company. About two months in, I had to meet with their brand and marketing agency which was supposed to present some go-to-market strategies for one of our new products. 

Obinna was the senior rep they sent to demonstrate the strategies in our office. He also became the point person as soon as we approved the agency’s plans, so almost like Daniel, we started communicating a lot and having to accompany each other to external work events. We got along so well it was almost too good to be true. At first, I told myself he’s probably this charming to all women. But when he started reaching out for us to hang out outside of work tasks, I didn’t hate it. Then we started going out together every evening after work and then again on weekends.

Sounds like the perfect match you were looking for

You can say that.

We never even had the “Be my girlfriend” or “What are we?” conversation. We just spent so much time together that asking would’ve been denying the obvious. And it was exciting to have something so clear it didn’t need words. I’m not saying it couldn’t have gone badly o, but sometimes, when you know, you know.

Is that why you got engaged so quickly though?

We got engaged just last month, on the one-year anniversary of the day we met. How long is long enough to date before getting engaged, please? But yeah, this time, I’m sure I love him, and we understand each other so well. 

Right. And does Obinna feel anyhow about your ex being part of the family now?

Oh. That’s a big question o. We haven’t really had that conversation. He was definitely taken aback when he heard the story, but he’s really cordial with Daniel. 

Again, Daniel is very good-natured. He’s not the type of person to give anyone cause to suspect or be wary just by seeing him and being around him, except you’re a particularly overbearing person. And Obinna isn’t, so my guess is he hasn’t thought about it that deeply at this time. He hasn’t even brought it up. 

Maybe I should go and ask him after this interview.

Fingers crossed for you. How would you rate your love life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Umm. 8. Obinna and I have a good thing going.

Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.

NEXT BEST THING: Love Life: We’re Soulmates Who’ve Been Together Since JSS 1

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

How did you meet each other?

Daniel: I was dating her twin sister, Mina, for almost two years between 2019 and 2021. I met Somi sometime during that period. She had her own boyfriend at the time. And all four of us were quite friendly. We used to go out together a lot.

Somi: Yes, we were all good friends. But then, I broke up with my boyfriend towards the end of 2021, while Daniel proposed to Mina about a month after.

Wait, he was going to marry your twin sister?

Daniel: I thought I loved her, but the truth is, we were incompatible in a lot of ways. We had very different personalities. She was the kind of person to always be out and about, attending everyone’s party. She was generally loud and jovial. I’m a lot more reserved. But I admired her and loved being her person.

Somi: We started bonding after I became single and he drew closer to the family as Mina’s fiance. We could both relate to being in her shadow. So when she was on one of her energy bursts, initiating ideas none of us could relate to, Daniel and I would exchange glances and knowing smiles.

When did you realise you liked each other?

Daniel: When I realised I was lowkey spending more time with Somi, and I was beginning to feel guilty about it, I knew something was up.

Somi: We’d have these long deep conversations in the living room — while Mina was somewhere else doing something else — and I started to realise he got me. I’ve always been the quiet sister between Mina and me. But Daniel is even more quiet than me. 

When she first started dating him after they met at work, I was so sure they’d break up in no time because Mina had a type, and it wasn’t Daniel. I was shocked when he even proposed to her. Then, I started thinking Mina was lucky she got such a good, unproblematic person. 

When that changed to feelings of jealousy, I started avoiding him. We both still lived with our parents, so anytime I knew she was coming to the house with him, I’d just go out.

How did things progress from there?

Somi: They started getting busy with their wedding plans. Mina was her usual energetic self about the whole thing, drawing me in with talks of the bridal train as expected. I had to be involved in preparations for the traditional side of things as well, and the whole thing made me so uncomfortable. 

I kept thinking they wouldn’t be happy together. But at the same time, I felt like a bad sister to think that. It’s not like I knew for sure that I liked him or he liked me back. I just liked him as a friend and person. And I felt his personality would clash with my sister’s in the long run. But he was love-struck.

Daniel: I agree I was love-struck. But I now realise it’s different from being in love with someone. I loved the idea of Mina and the idea of being with someone that passionate about everything. But our relationship was missing that connection I always felt with Somi.

SUPER RELATED: Love Life: We Love Each Other But Can’t Live Together

I’m curious how you guys crossed the line over to love and a relationship

Somi: First, Mina suddenly called off the wedding the day of her bridal shower, a few weeks before the wedding. She called me crying, as the rest of the bridal party was preparing for the shower and told me she’d broken it off with Daniel. She confided in me that she no longer felt excited about the prospects of marrying him, and she’d felt that way for a while but didn’t want to admit it. But now, everything in her was saying no. 

My first thought was, “How’s Daniel taking this news?” I wanted to comfort Mina, but at the same time, I wanted to be sure Daniel was okay. And to be honest, my longing for Daniel was stronger at that moment.

Daniel: I didn’t take it well at all. I actually cried when Mina broke things off. On one side, I didn’t think I deserved her. On the other, I was already determined to give her my all. In retrospect, I know it was unhealthy to be with someone who unknowingly made me feel less than. 

After the whole thing settled and I made peace with the fact that I was no longer getting married, I obviously stayed away from their house and business. But then, Somi reached out to me about a week later, asking how I was. She sounded so sincere and comforting when she said she hoped I was fine. And I realised I’d missed her and our frequent bantering.

I see

Somi: We started talking over the phone from time to time after that first call. We’d always been close on IG, so we started really responding to each other’s content again and exchanging memes.

Daniel: She didn’t know how much her messages and memes helped me get through the day. Having her come back into my life after I stopped being anything to her, really made me feel a lot less lonely. 

One day, I decided to ask her if she wanted to hang out, and we did. We attended my co-worker’s birthday party together. Thankfully, Mina and Somi are completely unidentical, so there was no mistaking them for each other and wondering if I’d gotten back together with Mina. 

Somi: LOL. After that outing, I knew I really liked him. And I knew I had to have a potentially difficult conversation with Mina. Luckily, she said she was fine with me getting close to him.

Daniel: I asked her out officially a week after we attended the birthday party in 2021.

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You didn’t feel awkward that you would’ve married her twin?

Daniel: Of course, I did. I knew how it looked.

Somi: I was ashamed for the first few months, so we hid the relationship from all our mutual friends. But we kept going because we just got along so well. We’re both quiet introverts who love to dwell in our personal spaces without intrusion from the outside world. And somehow, we got to meld personal spaces such that we loved being alone together. What I love most about us is how we get each other’s subtle gestures and facial expressions so well.

Daniel: Our public sign language. LOL.

Somi: Yes. It also does wonders for my self-esteem that Mina and I aren’t identical. It makes me that much more confident that I’m not just a perfect replacement. I do believe we share a true connection.

Daniel: We do.

So how did you go from hiding your relationship to marriage?

Daniel: That was hard. I was terribly ashamed to go back to her parents. The same man wanting to marry the twin sister this time around? I felt bad. My mum was my support system during this time. She really helped me jump that hurdle. And of course, Somi too kept trying to convince me that she’d already told them and done some of the dirty work. I don’t know how she gathered the nerve. Meanwhile, I was joking around about us eloping to another country.

Somi: But he eventually came to meet my parents, and they were completely fine with it as long as Mina didn’t have any issues. Oh, I should mention that by then, Mina was already getting on with her current fiance.

Nice. But when did you propose? And why does it feel like you were in such a hurry to marry, Daniel?

Daniel: I really wasn’t. I just don’t believe in wasting time when you’ve found a good thing. I felt good about Mina. But maybe that was just because I got to spend a lot of time with Somi and mistook the warmth I felt in my heart during that period for being happy with Mina.

Somi: I think when we started properly dating, we just wanted to be fully committed to each other as soon as possible. But actually, we dated for up to a year before the wedding. That’s not bad at all.

Daniel: I proposed in May 2022, seven months after we started dating. I just asked her to marry me one Saturday night while we were watching TV together and discussing the cars we liked. Her friend helped me choose a ring the next day, and I officially proposed during a lunch date later in the week.

Somi: It all felt natural, and I especially appreciate that he didn’t plan a fanfare around the proposal. It felt like we were having a heart-to-heart when he asked me and later proposed with a ring. The wedding happened five months later, in October.

How does Mina feel about you two being married now?

Somi: She jokes about it all the time — that she’s glad she didn’t force herself to marry Daniel and ruin our chances of true love forever.

Aww

Daniel: I’m actually very grateful to God because things like that have ruined so many lives. 

Somi: All three of us would’ve probably been miserable for the rest of our lives because of that one act. And worse, we wouldn’t even know what was triggering our sadness.

Right? So how would you rate your love life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Somi: 10

Daniel: 10

DIRECTLY RELATED: Love Life Special: Mina’s Side of the Story

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Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

How did you meet?

Tunde: Our mums hooked us up.

Tumi: They’re childhood best friends, but his mum moved to the US in the 90s. I’d always known about him vaguely.

Tunde: My mum showed me photos of her once or twice. But we finally met when I came to Nigeria for the first time in October 2018. My brother was getting married, and his babe’s family was in Nigeria. I met Tumi at this wedding.

Tumi: During the weeks leading up to his arrival, my mum kept telling me how I had to meet him, and we’d be so good together. She even told me that when she and her friend gave birth to us around the same time, they promised each other we’d get married. Of course, I rolled my eyes.

Tunde: My mum didn’t go that far, but she definitely wanted us to get together. When I finally met Tumi, I was so over the pressure from my mum that I didn’t really try to get to know her.

Tumi: Three months later, we were married.

Please, tell us what magic occurred

Tunde: I ended up staying in Nigeria longer than the one month my family had planned because of some personal issues. We stayed in my father’s family house, and it was this big, comfortable estate, so Tumi’s mum would come over a lot. She practically lived with us during that time.

Tumi: My dad had recently died, and I was their only child, so my mum really leaned on her old friend for emotional support. That meant I was almost always in their house too when I wasn’t at work or staying over with my friends. He was always out and about, which meant we practically lived together but never actually saw. Meanwhile, our mums were each planting seeds of us being together in our heads.

Tunde: That’s an accurate way to put it, “planting seeds”. I just realised one day that I wasn’t opposed to the idea anymore. It’d been said to me enough times that it started to seem like my idea. So I started watching Tumi from afar and realised she was actually a good catch. 

Tumi: Besides the regular pleasantries when we saw, we weren’t really friends, but our mothers’ almost sisterhood was so infectious it gave us a kind of bond, I think. 

When did you realise you liked or even loved each other?

Tunde: About a month in, I started really seeing her and realised I could’ve been attracted to her without this pressure from our mums. 

Watching her in our living room as I passed by, or as we crossed paths in the front yard, her personality always made me smile. She can be hotheaded, but she’s adorable when she’s angry. You can’t cheat or disrespect Tumi. She won’t take it even for a second; she’ll change it for you immediately and in an intelligent way. I really like that about her.

Tumi: I think around that time, I noticed he was getting less aloof around me. We still only did pleasantries but he was noticeably warmer. I admired how reserved he was though. 

I’ve always liked a man who isn’t necessarily arrogant but also doesn’t talk too much. Our mothers aside, he was a good spec based on all the things I liked in a man. Well, the superficial things. We didn’t really get to know each other until much later.

Before or after the sharp wedding?

Tumi: LOL. Both.

Tunde: We’re still getting to know each other right now. It’s not something that has to happen at a specific period. But sometime in the second month, November, I decided I wanted to marry her. I wanted it, and I knew it would make my mum happy. 

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Sounds like a huge thing to just decide like that

Tunde: I know. But I didn’t really want to deep it. I kinda liked this girl and both our parents wanted us to get married, so why not? I was young, but I was doing pretty well as a remote coder for a tech company in Cali. I couldn’t really think why not? It wasn’t like I’d been in any serious relationships ever, and I couldn’t be bothered to date.

Tumi: I’d had one serious boyfriend before we married. We dated for four years and it ended terribly, so I was sore from that. I hadn’t dated in several months before Tunde came into my life, and I was meeting many frogs at the time. 

When he jokingly asked me, “What if we just get married?” one day in his mum’s kitchen, I thought he was crazy, but I didn’t hate the idea at the same time.

But you barely knew him

Tumi: I know it sounds crazy. But I dated my ex for four years. Still, after our breakup, I felt like I never really knew him.

Tunde: I can’t really explain it, but it felt like we’d known each other forever because of our mums. She felt so familiar, and as we warmed up to each other, it started to feel like home when I was around her. 

At some point, when I stepped outside my room after a long virtual work day or got back home from whatever elongated trip I went on with relatives I was getting to know, I’d immediately want her to be around just to feel her presence. Anytime I discovered she wasn’t there with her mum, I’d feel a little sad.

Tumi: I was completely ignorant of this because he never actually asked about me. He’d just use his eyes to look for me. If he sees me, he’d greet me and ask how I was.

So what happened in the kitchen that day?

Tumi: Our mums had gone out. For the first time, I had to stay back at their place without my mum. It was a Saturday, but I had some urgent work to do on my laptop and didn’t want to waste time on transit getting home before doing it. And surprise surprise, he actually came down from his domain to see what the mere mortals were up to. That was the first time we had a proper conversation after almost two months of meeting.

Tunde: I needed a break from my screen to stretch my legs and eyes, so I came downstairs and froze when I saw her in the living room. No one was home. My siblings had gone back to the US by then. I only stayed back to keep my mum company and enjoy Lagos during the famous Detty December because I worked remotely. Everywhere was quiet and she looked so pretty from behind, focused on work, I knew I had to talk to her.

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And?!

Tumi: It was a little chat. He asked about my work. I answered and took the opportunity to ask about his because I’d been so curious. I mean, this was 2018. Remote work wasn’t really a thing then. I won’t lie; a part of me thought he was doing yahoo.

Tunde: DFKM.

Tumi: I told him our mums had gone out together, and we joked about their obsession with each other. I told him I really admired it actually and was jealous I didn’t have something like that. He was quiet for a bit, then he said the thing about us getting married and seeing if they were right about us being a perfect match.

Tunde: It just came out, but as soon as it did, I wanted it to happen. I wanted to marry her.

And that happened one month later, how, please?

Tumi: It was a joke until it wasn’t. I think it was the Americana in him that rubbed off on me. Like, after that talk, I thought for sure he wasn’t serious. But then the next day, he showed me a ring he was considering ordering off Instagram, and would I say yes if he did? We didn’t even have each other’s phone numbers at this point. It was crazy.

Tunde: I was just sure all of a sudden. I mean, it wasn’t a do-or-die thing. If the marriage didn’t work out, we’d divorce. My thinking was worst-case scenario, we’d last five years, and it would be a fun adventure. I knew enough about her character to know nothing particularly bad would happen. Maybe if our mums weren’t so obsessed with the idea, I wouldn’t have been thinking about a wedding off the bat, but really, why not?

Tumi: Crazy, crazy, crazy. The fact that I went along with the craze is a testament to how much I was already liking him before that. And like he said, our mums were a huge factor. I wouldn’t have just agreed with a complete stranger. Definitely not.

How did your mums and Tunde’s dad take the news?

Tunde: We told everyone some days later, and they were shocked.

Tumi: My mum was like, “Ahn ahn. Ahn ahn. When did everything happen without me knowing? So you were just allowing me talk. Meanwhile, you’ve gone behind to do jigi jaga”.

Scrim

Tunde: My mum actually called me back to make sure her “too much talk” didn’t put undue pressure on me. I was like, “Too late, Mama.” They were all just concerned we were talking marriage right away instead of just revealing we’d decided to date or something. But underneath the disguise, our mums at least, were beyond excited. It was good to see.

Tumi: My friends were harder to convince. Besides my best friend, the rest were convinced I was making a huge mistake. What if he’s abusive? What if there’s something diabolical going on? It was a lot. My bestie encouraged me to sha follow my heart but use my head. My head had already turned because I was painfully attracted to him by this point and his conviction about the whole thing was contagious.

Tunde: Nah. My friends were excited to meet the woman who got me to propose in such a short period. They were totally rooting for me because they thought I was head over heels, which I guess I was.

So tell me about the wedding. Don’t preparations last six months, at least?

Tumi: We didn’t want any of that. 

This was kind of an experiment — though one made out of love — so we weren’t trying to go the whole Nigerian festival route. Once we agreed we wanted to do this, we started talking logistics. He lives in the US, and I’d never lived outside Lagos before. Thankfully, I had a British passport from being born there, so it was easy to make the decision for me to move in with him in San Fransisco. 

My career was the major bane of the whole plan. I had to be sure I wanted to quit and be dependent on him until I found a job here. And there was a huge possibility I never would, knowing the US immigrant climate, especially being a marketer. It was a huge decision to make for an experiment.

Tunde: I recognised that and urged her to consider it deeply. No pressure.

Tumi: I now run an online retail store, so that worked out fine. 

We moved in the middle of January 2019 and had a civil wedding in the beautiful SF city hall. That place is so gorgeous.

Tunde: My parents and her mum attended with all my friends, but they still did an engagement party without us in Lagos. They sent photos of the chaotic thing.

And how has the experiment been so far?

Tumi: Pretty good. We’re good friends and lovers now, and it honestly doesn’t matter that we chose not to overthink things going in.

Tunde: Pretty much. I don’t think we’re missing anything. We created a foundation of not taking things too seriously, and that’s helped a lot. We’re both responsible adults, so of course, we plan things like bills and spending thoroughly. We have kids now, right? 

Besides being clear about finances, everything goes.

How would y’all rate your Love Life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Tumi: 10 is perfect, right? So 9.

Tunde: Same.

Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.

NEXT BEST THING: Love Life: We Love Each Other But Can’t Live Together

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

Let’s start from the top. What was day one like for you two?

Boma: We were university mates in the same level, but he was studying computer science, while I was in architecture. We knew each other because our school was rather close-knit. But we became friends in 300 level, when we joined the technical (TC) unit of our school’s chapel. 

When we came back for our final year in 2015, he asked me out.

John: I was surprised she said yes because our fellow unit member had asked her out in 300 level, and she said no. He told me not to bother since she wasn’t looking to enter a relationship until after graduation. Turns out, she just used scope to tell him off.

I thought she was really cool. Quiet but not too much because she also had lots of friends. The first thing we connected on was cartoons. Not even all these cool new animations; we’d talk about old cartoons we loved when we were kids. She had episodes of Kids Next Door and Ed, Edd n Eddy on her laptop. I remember giving her my hard drive and begging her to share them with me.

Boma: Yeah. That was fun. The good times, before adulthood came calling.

Hot tears. So what happened after the relationship kicked off?

John: We started hanging out more, outside of TC activities. My department was in the same building as hers, just a floor beneath.

Boma: As you know, final year is hectic, so it was good to have someone to share the burden with me, to run thesis research and attend the many general lectures our school forced on us. We always made plans to eat, study, attend and stab classes together. 

But when we got home, we barely saw, even though we lived in the same PH. We spoke over the phone when we could, sent each other plenty memes and skits, and that was it.

I’m now curious how y’all have lasted seven years together

John: When we resumed school for the final semester, we got much closer. Especially during final exams. We’d stay in class till like 9:30 p.m. — so we could make it to our dorms by 10 (we weren’t trying to get expelled at the 11th hour) — studying together and making out in between. We weren’t really talking about our commitments post-uni, so there was the bittersweet feeling that this could be the end. 

But when we met each other’s parents during our convocation ceremony, I knew I wanted our relationship to last beyond that day. She had such a positive, loveable vibe, and her family is so nice. Our families bonded really well. It was beautiful to see.

Boma: So we kept in touch. We texted and DMed for months after convocation. I was talking to other people too, but nothing was clicking. 

Then, in November 2016, we decided to meet up before NYSC, for what felt a lot like a first date. We went to a nice bistro, had sandwiches and fries and talked forever. After that, we started going to events and parties together, and sometimes, I’d stay over at his when he was at his brother’s flat.

When did love enter the equation?

John: Right after our “first date”. 

I got posted to Enugu for NYSC, but she got Rivers and stayed in PH. So I had someone cover for me in exchange for all my government allowance, while I moved back to town after the orientation camp.

Boma: I loved the idea that he moved back because of me. I also liked the way I felt when I knew I was about to hang out with him. He’s good vibes all through. We can chat for days and make out for days too. Plus, he’s really kind and respectful.

John: Wow. My head dey swell.

What do you talk about? Simulate your average day-long conversation right here, right now

John: Our gist always starts with whatever is happening at that moment. Like, we could be talking about the food at a restaurant, but somehow, music or cartoon must enter the gist. We still watch a lot of animations, and she’s passionate about music, so she must bring up one of her faves. Someone from Hillsong, Beyonce, Mercy Chinwo, you name it. 

Boma: Then he’ll somehow bring in football or more food or clothes. He loves fashion die. He’ll find a way to stroke Queen Bey’s latest performance outfit and still compare her to some random footballer. DFKM.

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Interesting. So how has your relationship evolved since the beginning?

Boma: We’re definitely more grown now, so a lot of our deeper set personalities have come to light. I mean, we’ve moved in with each other three times now, but each time, the co-habiting thing fails. 

The first time was when we both moved to Lagos for work. It made sense to move in together as a way to save rent money, and of course, be closer. But NGL, the “always seeing ourselves” thing came on too strong for us. There was constant friction; we tried to laugh it off until we couldn’t. 

That’s when he found out I was a grumpy morning person and prone to mood swings.

John: And the sleeping in the same bed thing. It was good for easy sex. But then, I snore, and you’re a light sleeper. LOL. 

Remember that first time I got a cold and fever? She couldn’t sleep the whole night because of my constant sniffing, coughing and sneezing. Meanwhile, me, I somehow managed to sleep. We decided we’d sleep separately if one of us was sick. But there was only one room, so someone had to sleep on the couch for like a week.

We lived together for a total of two months before I went and found a room in my cousin’s house to avoid destroying our small romance.

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You didn’t take that as a sign to break up?

John: Nope. We still loved and love each other. We’re just maybe not ready to be that committed yet?

Boma: Yeah. I mean, we’re so compatible in a lot of other things. It’s just the little things that haven’t gelled yet. I think that’s normal.

John: Yeah, because the second time we moved in together, we were reckless about it. I got this nice fully-furnished Lekki apartment at a stupid price by pure luck. This place was fine fine. When she visited one day, she literally came back with some boxes and refused to leave again.

Boma: But we tried to set some ground rules, so I wouldn’t say we were reckless. 

First and foremost, we took separate rooms. Another thing he didn’t mention earlier was that I like sleeping in the cold, and he loves to be all warm and toasty under all the duvet in the world. O wrong nau. We only got into the same bed when we wanted sex or cuddles.

John: She moved out weeks before the one year even elapsed. I don’t even know when she moved out exactly. I just realised she was sleeping more and more at her own place.

But you guys still tried again?

John: It was the love o. All our other friends were slowly moving in with their partners, so I guess it was also peer pressure. A side of us wanted that extra physical closeness because it’s seen as the natural next step when you really love someone.

Boma: So when we both moved to Abuja in September 2021, we tried what we’d tried with our move to Lagos again. We got a place together. This one was a spacier three-bedroom apartment that cost us most of our salary at the time. But it was such a nice space, and I loved it.

John: In that place, we learnt a lot of lessons that have benefited our relationship. We learnt to form our own rules and expectations separate from what we’d grown up to believe had to happen in relationships.

Like what?

John: We don’t share things just because we’re “supposed” to. It’s important for us to keep everything separate to avoid any of that confusion and resentment that comes with one person’s likes and needs getting lost in the other person’s.

Boma: For example, we made sure to use products we liked and buy our groceries separately. We like different types of food and different brands of basic things like pasta, toothpaste, air freshener, even milk. We don’t make it a big deal; we just buy what we want.

John: Neither of us has to eat a meal that one of us cooked. She can cook what she feels like eating and eat, while I might want something else, so I’ll go and fix it for myself too.

Boma: Another thing that works for us is letting go of that constant need to check up on each other when we’re separate. 

John: Oh, I still have PTSD from the people I entered the talking stage with before I became more committed to Boma. I know it’s supposed to show love and care, but why am I out for an event or whatever, and you’re constantly texting me to make sure I’m alright? 

I think it’s also PTSD from our strict parents. Once it’s like 11 p.m. those days, they’d start hitting up my phone. Why are we trying to get to know each other and you’re cosplaying as my father? 

Boma: We don’t see how the constant check-ins make either of us safer. We trust each other to take all necessary safety precautions and also stay faithful. We’re both adults. 

I too had my strict parents insisting on calls every hour on the hour.

It seems you had a good understanding. Why the co-habiting break this time?

Boma: We stopped “dating”. 

In the ten months we stayed together, we went out on a proper date once. Between work and online school when I started my MBA programme, we always saw each other. So at first, it was about saving money or energy. Then, we just weren’t taking out time for small small romance. 

We’d enjoy each other‘s company doing mundane things like going to the supermarket or laundromat. He’s my best friend, so we have a good time no matter what. But then, it got boring. Life was happening too much for my liking. I felt old all of a sudden and was getting more irritable about it.

John, what do you have to say to this?

John: I was constantly stressed out by my demanding job, so I couldn’t really be as attentive to the mood of our relationship as I would’ve liked. So when she told me she wanted to move out barely a year in, I was honestly shocked. I thought we were settling into a nice rhythm together.

Boma: I felt guilty for days prior, that I was about to ruin a good thing. But I didn’t want to settle. I wasn’t satisfied, so I needed a break to step away and process why. He understood that and let me go.

John: I emphasised that I didn’t want the relationship to break off because of her move, and she agreed. Of course, she still comes over to visit, and I go to hers too. But since she packed out in July 2022, we’ve talked more about definitive future plans. And how we’d navigate a home together considering our peculiarities.

Boma: That’s how he’s basically proposed to me without coming direct. All these corners. Sigh. 

For now, though, we’re embracing this casual commitment to each other.

John: Yeah, it’s important to be able to give each other breathing space when we need it.

How would y’all rate your Love Life on a scale of 1 to 10?

John: I’d say 6-7. We have a lot to sort out, but what I do know is we love each other very much. Everything we do is from a place of love.

Boma: 7 because I’m so sure we’ll make everything work in the end. It’ll just take a lot of intentionality from both of us. But yes, I love you, John.

Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.

HERE’S MORE: Love Life: We Found Love, Then the Nigerian Civil War Started

Love Life is a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.

What’s your earliest memory of each other?

Cynthia: We met in 2015 when I was doing my third master’s in Unilag.

Jide: That caught my attention right off the bat. Why is someone doing three master’s, for God’s sake?

Cynthia: I did two in the UK just because I wanted to extend my stay. But Theresa May struck with her new immigration policy sometime in 2012, when she was Home Secretary. I had to finally return to Naij. To be honest, it was a relief.

Jide: This Nigeria?

Cynthia: Yes o. It was getting tiring to live in a country that didn’t want me. Anyway, I was living off campus around Yaba. And my roommate was his younger sister. We met for the first time when he came to drop off a gas cylinder he had just bought for her.

Jide: But then, we found out we went to the same secondary school.

Cynthia: And the same university in the UK for our first degree.

Jide: She’s obviously been stalking me forever. But strangely, we never met until that day in my sister’s apartment. I was too far ahead of her in school.

Sounds like the universe had decided your fate. When did you realise you liked each other?

Jide: My sister introduced us, and the three of us talked for a bit, until she got tired and left Cynthia and me together in their little sitting room. Like I said, I was amazed she had two master’s already, both in the medical field. Then I found out she was getting an MA in English because she was transitioning into creative writing and loved the same writers I loved.

Cynthia: I sent him a couple of my short stories and one unfinished manuscript—

Jide: Which she still hasn’t finished, by the way—

Cynthia: Shhh. I shared them with him, and he read two of the stories there and then. My stories tend to be esoteric because I like to read speculative and literary fiction, but he got everything I was going for. He even gave me some very sensible pointers to improve the character development. It was refreshing to have someone understand my mind like that with little effort.

Jide: I found out she knew and read Murakami, and it was all over for me. I was gone.

Cynthia: I still don’t like Chimamanda sha.

Jide: Hmm. We’ll forgive you for that one… for now.

And when did it turn to love?

Cynthia: I couldn’t stop thinking about him after he left that night. I tossed and turned in bed for hours, dissecting our hours-long conversation and revelling in it. He was really cute, and I was already imagining a love affair between us, but only within the confines of my imagination as a writer.

I really didn’t think anything serious would happen. I’d had too many experiences of long, drawn-out conversations with guys, mostly over the phone. But the conversations always fizzled out after a day or two; as if the person just ran out of things they were interested in talking to me about and didn’t think it was worth it to explore other angles. Admittedly, none of those people got me as much as he seemed to from the beginning. But I thought this one was too good to be true and would still follow that pattern, last last.

Jide: I was completely hooked. I hadn’t had such a good conversation with someone — about all the things I loved best —in years, possibly forever. People don’t talk enough about how amazing and rare it is to meet people who love enough of the things you love, especially the things you may be too ashamed to mention. On the first evening, I shared a few things with her I would normally never share with a stranger. I may not have put a name to it right away, but I was in love with her from that day. 

I got her number from my sister and returned the next day to give her my original Kill Bill box set. She’d mentioned it was her favourite Hollywood movie, and all I could think of was getting home and getting back to give it to her. I dropped it off and went straight to work.

Cynthia: I was so happy. I didn’t even know how to react, but he had to rush off to work. So I was off the hook for the time being.

I’m guessing that’s how y’all started dating?

Jide: We never made it official, and I take responsibility for that. But we started seeing each other every other day. We would be at each other’s, discussing work, school, books and our life ideologies. We’re both very deep thinkers, and we enjoyed sound boarding our ideas off of each other. I run my father’s engineering business, so we’d talk about diversifying the company’s investment portfolio and she’d refer me to all her many IJGB friends running one business or the other. 

A month after we met, you were more likely to find her in my house in Surulere than in Yaba, probably playing FIFA for hours on end. The only thing is she never slept over.

Cynthia: I didn’t want the awkward situation where I’d have to explain to a grown man why I didn’t want sex at 27.

Jide: If only she knew I would’ve completely understood. But I know she still wouldn’t have trusted me enough to take that chance at the time. I really didn’t mind her sleeping in her own place every night. I’ve never been a big sex person, and I’m a stickler for everyone respecting each other’s space and boundaries, so it worked for me.

Do you remember what your first major fight was about?

Jide: Yep. She lost the Kill Bill set just two months after.

Cynthia: I kept it on the TV stand in the sitting room of my Yaba apartment, and it just disappeared one day. Till today, I can’t understand what happened to it.

Jide: It was a special edition that’s no longer in circulation. It had miniature collector’s items inside and bonus content. Giving it to her was a huge sacrifice I made only because I thought maybe she would appreciate it more than me, being her “favourite film of all time”. 

When she told me she didn’t know where it was, I lost it. I was so crushed I didn’t speak to her for three days. I’m ashamed to say that now. A part of me didn’t like that she just kept it on her TV stand in the first place. I thought she would treasure it in her bedroom or something, like I did.

Cynthia: I wanted to show it off. He was so angry, and I could tell he was hurt. I felt so bad, but I was also angry that he would react so deeply to a material thing. 

Jide: I honestly got where you were coming from with that statement, but it made me regret giving it to you more. It made me realise I did value the box set more than you. And I saw it as a symbol of my willingness to sacrifice for you. We were obviously not on the same page about that. So I let it go. 

That was just one con out of a thousand pros in your favour. I called her on the fourth day and apologised for keeping away. I wasn’t going to let you go because of that.

Cynthia: Ope o. LOL.

How has this relationship been different from past ones?

Cynthia: From the first month, we were so certain we were in this relationship for the long haul. We never even had to talk about our commitment directly; we just started making big decisions together. Like us not attending jumat anymore, or you starting your real estate business and me querying US literary agencies for representation.

Jide: And finally moving in together after you got your THIRD master’s a year later.

Cynthia: Yes. That. I’ve never had any of that in my previous relationships. Everything with us happens so organically. No one is playing some game or trying to have some upper hand. We genuinely care about each other being happy and comfortable at all times.

Jide: Also, because our relationship was built on the foundation of mutual creative interests, we keep finding new things to love and share with each other. It’s so unique for me because we always always like the same things. So I’m almost never worried whether she’d enjoy something I want to share with her.

Cynthia: Like the time you were so obsessed with trying out recipes. First, you made kitchen “firewood” jollof with foil. Then it was ewa agoyin from scratch. That was lovely. I loved it because I used to dream about making things like bread and milkshakes from scratch in my kitchen, so I could make sure everything is clean and organic.

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What’s the most unconventional thing about your relationship?

Jide: We’re mostly celibate.

Sorry?

Cynthia: Yes. We only have sex on New Year’s because we try to start each year reviewing whether we want to continue on with our resolutions from the year before. So it’s basically a celibacy review session, a chance for either of us to speak out that, “I’m not doing again. I miss sex.” But so far, we’ve always chosen to stick to celibacy. 

This year’s review session was funny; we kept bursting into laughter when we made out. We didn’t even pass second base.

Jide: Why do you look so shocked? We’re both asexual. She doesn’t enjoy sex at all. And I’m indifferent about it. It’s an indulgence I’d been overstimulated with in my 20s, and now, I’m obsessed with the idea of complete purity.

Cynthia: It works perfectly for me because the idea of sex repulses me. In secondary school, I couldn’t understand why people kissed. Why would you want to exchange saliva with an almost stranger? I’m pretty sure my body is missing one or two sex hormones. Because I don’t feel a single pleasant sensation when I do it.

Jide: I feel the pleasant sensation, but not enough to make me miss it when I don’t have it.

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I’m curious how the celibacy decision came about

Cynthia: When he asked me to marry him in 2018. 

Jide: We’d been dating for over three years. We lived together. It was the natural progression of things.

Cynthia: But I said no, which confused him. He pestered me about it for days, and I didn’t know how to explain I didn’t want to have sex with him ever. I’d been scared about it up until that moment, and there it finally was, the point where I had to come clean or run. So one day, I came back from work early, packed all my stuff and moved out to my half-sister’s apartment.

Jide: I came back home and was so scared she had disappeared. She wasn’t picking up her calls either. She basically ghosted me for up to a week. The worst thing was I didn’t know the half-sibling she might have been with — she had at least four half-siblings in Lagos, all from different mothers. Her dad is dead, and her mum lives in another state. I had to work like a detective to track her down, grilling all her friends. I still couldn’t find her o.

Cynthia: I’m very secretive, so I didn’t even tell any of my friends I was leaving his house. It was the long emotional messages he kept sending me on all platforms that eventually got to me. I started feeling wicked for keeping him hanging like that. He sounded so earnest in his voice notes. We met up, and I explained to him how I never wanted to have sex with anyone ever.

Jide: Scratch my original answer to this question. How I knew I’d fallen in love with her is when I knew without a doubt that I’d give up sex to be with her forever. When I told her I accepted her decision, I was already contemplating life without sex and making peace with it mentally. I felt no panic or reservations whatsoever. I only wanted to make sure it wasn’t coming from a place of trauma. When she assured me it wasn’t, I gave in completely.

Cynthia: I was actually traumatised by walking in on my elder brother watching hardcore porn when I was 12. I didn’t want to ever be touched or have my body intruded in that manner, or any way at all. So I decided there and then that I would be a nun. When the nun thing didn’t work out, I chose celibacy.

How have the last five years been?

Cynthia: Our marriage has been an extension of the relationship before it, and it’s as beautiful. There are ups and downs, but we go through everything on the same side. Our beautiful conversations about every single thing make me feel alive. When we hug or cuddle, it’s after we’ve laughed so hard and bonded over books or music or a great new hobby, and I love every moment of that.

Jide: We now have two beautiful children we adopted in 2019 and 2021. We decided it would be cheaper than going the IVF or surrogate route. And we’re passionate about giving the children who already exist a home, rather than taking extreme measures to bring new life into this flawed and difficult world.

How would you rate your love life on a scale of 1 to 10?

Cynthia: 7. Every morning, I choose to love Jide again and again. He’s such a kind and giving soul. But there’s always lots of room for improvement, and I like to keep a very open mind for fresh blessings.

Jide: Hmm. 8. Only because I am always the more generous of the two of us, and I want to stay on brand. Cynthia motivates me to explore new things regularly, and I’m so grateful for that in my life. All we need now is a big dog.

Cynthia: Like a Husky.

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