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Gaya

I want you to imagine for a second: your boyfriend of 5 years looks you in the eyes and tells you, in the middle of an argument, that he wants an open relationship. What would you do?

I remember that day because it still counts as the worst day of my life. But when I went to Juliet, bawling my eyes out, she asked me just one question. "Are you ready for war?" I told her I just wanted my man back. She said, "That's what the war is for." I just nodded.

Divine and I had been dating for 5 years. We met in uni. He was in his final year and I was in 100 level, but it wasn't the usual "catch them young" situation. We started off as friends. He helped with my clearance, answered all my questions, escorted me to night class, and somewhere along the line, we fell in love.

By second semester, we were dating, and it was beautiful. Really beautiful. I loved what we had but by the fourth year, things got boring. He got tired. We were always fighting, and one day, in the middle of yet another argument, he blurted out that maybe the solution was to have an open relationship so we could bring the spark back.

I just stared at him because what?? Not a vacation. Not a dinner date. Not an outing. Not even therapy!! This man was asking for permission to cheat. I cried so much that day but Juliet looked me in the eyes, held my hands, and told me it was time to stop crying and harden my heart because that was the only way I was going to get my relationship back.

So I called Divine and told him I was down. The only rule was no secrets. He told me he loved me and that we could make it work.&nbsp;

He started going on dates. He'd gist me about them. He had sex with one girl. Told her he had a girlfriend. The babe was fine too. I'd cry to Juliet and then smile at him whenever he asked if I was okay. Then I decided to actually take him seriously.

I remembered there was this guy who once made a pass at me and I told him I had a boyfriend. His response was:"Overtaking is allowed." I called Stan. We talked like old friends and I laughed a lot. It was interesting, actually. It had been a while since I enjoyed talking to another man that much.

So we started going on dates. The first day I mentioned Stan to Divine, Oga was legitimately angry. He said I was going too far. I asked how. He said not to worry. I immediately called Juliet because I was scared. Juliet told me to do exactly what he said and not worry. So I didn't.

How Dating Another Man Helped Me Find Myself Again&nbsp;

I really enjoyed being with Stan and in a weird way, it fueled something inside me. Not because I was falling in love with him. Relax. But because for the first time in years, I wasn't spending every waking moment trying to save my relationship. Stan was fun. He listened. He remembered things I said. He'd text me randomly in the middle of the day because he saw something that reminded him of our conversation.

&nbsp;We would sit for hours and gist, and I'd get home smiling like an idiot.The funny thing was that I didn't even realize how much of myself I'd lost in my relationship until I started enjoying my own company again. For years, my life had revolved around Divine. If we were fighting, my day was ruined. If he was happy, I was happy. If he was distant, I became anxious.

Somewhere along the line, I had become more focused on keeping my relationship than keeping myself and now, for the first time in a long time, I felt like a person again. The first sign that something had changed was when Divine started asking questions. At first, it was harmless.

"How was your day?" "It was good." "What did you do?" "Oh, Stan and I went to that restaurant I told you about."

The pause that followed was beautiful. A few weeks ago, this same man had been giving me detailed reports about his dates. Now suddenly, he wasn't too interested in hearing about mine. I ignored it. After all, this was what he wanted, abi?

The Moment I Realized the War Was Working&nbsp;

Then one Saturday, Divine asked if I wanted to hang out. I told him I couldn't. He asked why. I told him I already had plans. With Stan. The silence on the other end of the phone was so long I checked to see if the call had dropped.

I nearly choked. Choosing him over you? The same you that suggested an open relationship? The same you that said we needed excitement? I wanted to laugh but I held it in.

"Divine, you literally have a date tonight."That's different."

That was when I knew there was trouble in paradise. After that day, the stories about the girls started reducing. The excitement in his voice disappeared. The same man who couldn't stop talking about how great this arrangement was suddenly had nothing to say about it.Instead, every conversation somehow found its way back to Stan.

"What kind of work does he do? "How often do you guys talk?" "Do you really like spending time with him?"

One day, I got tired and asked him directly. "Why are you asking all these questions?" He said he was just curious. Liar.

The real problem showed up a month later. Stan posted me. Nothing serious. Just a picture from brunch where my hand happened to be visible in the frame. Tell me why Divine called me immediately.

I thought he was joking. He wasn't. The man was genuinely upset. I remember hanging up and calling Juliet. That woman laughed so hard she almost started coughing. "War is working," I told her to stop saying that, but she wasn't wrong. For the first time in years, Divine was paying attention. Suddenly, the woman who had spent years begging him to notice her wasn't standing still anymore.

One evening, he showed up at my apartment. The moment I opened the door, I knew something was wrong. He looked frustrated. The kind of frustrated that comes from fighting with yourself. He walked in, sat down, and after a few minutes of silence, he finally asked:

I stared at him. The audacity of men needs to be studied. I asked him if he liked the girls he was seeing. He didn't answer. Instead, he said something that caught me completely off guard.

I laughed. Of course, I had changed. I wasn't crying every night anymore. I wasn't constantly trying to convince someone to choose me. I wasn't begging for affection. I wasn't waiting around hoping things would go back to how they used to be. I had changed because I had finally remembered who I was and I think that's when it hit him.

The problem was never that he needed another woman. The problem was that somewhere along the way, we had both stopped trying. We stopped dating each other. Stopped paying attention. Stopped appreciating what we had because we assumed it would always be there. The open relationship didn't save us. The fear did. The fear of losing something we both thought was guaranteed.

Can an Open Relationship Save a Relationship?&nbsp;

A few weeks later, Divine asked to meet. We sat across from each other and for the first time in months, nobody was defensive. Nobody was angry. Nobody was trying to win and that's when he finally admitted it. He didn't want an open relationship anymore. He realized that what he was looking for wasn't out there. It was everything we'd stopped doing in here. The late-night conversations. The effort. The excitement. The intentionality. The friendship.

The relationship had become boring because we had become lazy because we stopped choosing each other. That was a much harder truth to face than either of us expected. So we the relationship. Not because somebody gave an ultimatum. We closed it because for the first time in a very long time, we were finally talking about the real problem and once you find the real problem, every fake solution starts looking unnecessary.

Sometimes, when people say they've "lost the spark," what they've really lost is effort. They've stopped paying attention. They've stopped dating each other. They've stopped seeing the person they've become comfortable with.

The open relationship wasn't the solution. In fact, it was probably the worst idea we ever had but it forced us to confront something we had been avoiding for years: we were taking each other for granted. Juliet was right. War was working. Just not in the way either of us expected.

Can an open relationship save a struggling relationship? After five years together, my boyfriend and I found out the answer the hard way.

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