He: At twenty, I dated an 18 year old. She was the love of my life.

She gained admission to a state university.

I was already an undergraduate at a federal university.

Her friends told her it wouldn’t work out.

She was dating a boy who wouldn’t be ready for marriage till about 10 years time.

One friend was dating a pilot

Another was dating a banker

The third was dating a man who owned a bakery and a woodlogging business

They were all older than me by six to ten years

My girlfriend did the maths and started dating another man on the side

I had no idea she could ever cheat on me

I suspected nothing

One day, I went to visit her in school, and she told me I must go and stay in a hotel or with a friend

I asked why

She said she has a message from a prophet at her church not to accommodate any friend for a period of forty days

I left her room and stayed with a friend

I didn’t sleep comfortably all night.

During the night, I decided it was best if I returned to my school the next day instead of spending a week with her as I had planned.

Early the next morning, I went to her rented apartment with the aim of telling her I had decided to return to my school.

I knocked on her window twice

The window opened, and it was a man I saw

(She later explained that one Christian guy often came to knock on her window to invite her for morning devotion, and she had assumed it was the guy.)

The man looked at me and said, “Yes, what do you want?”

I said, “Is so and so there?”

My girlfriend heard my voice and started whispering to the man to tell me she slept at the church.

I heard her loud and clear.

I didn’t bother to wait.

I returned to my school.

A month of pain and agony went by.

I knew we were done, and I was nursing my heartbreak

My girlfriend showed up at my hostel.

I was spreading clothes on the line when I heard her voice.

What does she want?

She wanted to talk and explain things to me so we wouldn’t end up as enemies.

She mentioned her friends and swore that she didn’t sleep with the man I saw.

She said the man was rich, in the poultry business and a husband material

She said he came to see her and arrived too late for him to get somewhere to sleep

So she let him stay in her room, but they didn’t have sex.

I pretended to believe

I had missed her too much.

We made up.

The man was still in her life.

I knew this because she became very guarded with her phone and would often excuse herself to take calls

I went off to NYSC

She was in her third year at that point.

She moved in with the man, and they started wedding plans

I was far away in Kano

The bird flu epidemic happened

The man lost a lot of his investment

Marriage plans stalled, and she returned to campus for her final year

Her friends told me everything that has been going on

I got a job with NDDC

She showed up at my doorstep asking me about what the plan for our future is.

I told her I cannot marry someone so close to my age

I still need to build a stable future

I told her I understand that her productive years are in the now, while mine would be later in the future.

I was twenty-four, and she was twenty-two!

She needed to marry a thirty-year-old.

She cried, but my hands were tied.