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Gaya

Nobody prepares you for the breakup where nobody did anything wrong.

The cheating breakups, the lying breakups, the he-changed breakups, those come with a script. You know what to say, who to be angry at, how to tell the story at brunch, but what about the ones where you loved them, genuinely, fully, and still could not make it work? Where the relationship ended, not because something broke, but because something just did not fit?

We put out a call asking young Nigerians to tell us about the one they walked away from while they were still in love. The responses came in late at night, mostly. Anonymous, honest, and in some cases funnier than they had any right to be, given the circumstances.

Why she left: The relationship was costing her herself

"I did not even realise how much I had changed until I looked in the mirror one day and genuinely did not recognise who I was becoming. I was quieter. Smaller. I had stopped doing the things that made me me because they made him uncomfortable. He never asked me to change, which honestly made it harder to be angry about. I was doing it voluntarily. For love. And slowly losing my mind in the process."

She ended it on a Tuesday. Nothing dramatic. She just knew.

"I cried for three months after and it took me two years to fully recover."

"I hope you find someone who fits the shape you need. I just could not be that shape anymore. Also I want my hoodie back."

Why he left: He did not want to be a burden

"Yes nau. I'll still sell my kidney for him."

That was Meowww's answer when we asked if she still loved him when it ended. Krypt was going through something heavy. Heavy enough that he decided he did not want to pull her into it. "I'm overly inquisitive and he's overly private. He was in that phase of 'I'm going through a lot and you can't help so I don't want to add you as a burden.' He just disappeared instead of letting me try."

"I was there for you when you had nothing, na you run away."

Why he left: She was ready for forever. He was not.

"She was perfect. I know how that sounds but she genuinely was. The problem was me. I could see exactly where we were going and I panicked. Like full body, can't breathe, what is happening to my life panic. I told her it was not the right time. That part was true. What I did not say was that I did not know if I would ever be ready and I did not want to waste hers while I figured it out."

He still thinks about her. More than he would like to admit, honestly.

"Sometimes I rehearse what I would say if I ran into her. I have been rehearsing for two years. I am still not ready."

"It was never you. It was never even us. It was just me, being a coward in slow motion, and I am sorry I could not say that clearly when it actually mattered."

"He was too controlling and insecure because I had male friends around me. He would threaten to leave whenever he wanted to punish me. At some point he actually did, just packed his feelings and left for a while so I could learn my lesson."

She still thinks about him. "He was still sweet in the midst of all the toxicity," she said, which is perhaps the most Nigerian sentence ever written about a complicated ex.

"Omo I still love you but God punish you!!!!!"

Why she left: They wanted different things, and neither was wrong

"We were genuinely good together. Like annoyingly good. The kind of good that makes your friends tired of hearing about your relationship because nothing dramatic ever happens. But he wanted to relocate and I had just started building something here that I was not willing to walk away from. We talked about it for months. Tried to find a way around it. There was no way around it."

She still loves him. She is also not sure she would do anything differently, which is its own kind of painful.

"I think about him every time something good happens to me. He was always the first person I wanted to call. That part has not gone away and it has been fourteen months so I am starting to think it might not."

"I chose myself. I hope you understand that. I hope you did too. And I hope wherever you are, the jollof rice is not as good as mine."

Why she left: She felt like she was holding him back

"He was really ambitious. A top tier nerd. And I felt like I was the one dragging him back because I barely understood his visions. It felt unfair to him. So I left."

She does not think about him much. "Life goes on," she said, with the energy of someone who made a hard decision and genuinely means it.

Why it ended: Effort. Or the lack of it.

"Officially I ended it but unofficially she did, long before I said the words. She just stopped trying. Stopped reaching. I kept going until I had nothing left to give and then I called it."

"You abandoned me but I forgive you."

Why he ended it: She did not want the life he was building

"It was hate at first. Now I don't hate him anymore. After all, I saw the signs but still chose to stay."

They were friends for years before it became something more. The reason it ended?

"I don't want to be a pastor's wife."

She thinks about him, but only with the specific prayer that she never crosses his path again.

"I was selfish. I knew I was. I was not ready to be what she needed and instead of saying that, I just kept showing up halfway. She deserved someone who was fully there. I was not that person yet. Maybe I still am not."

Why she left: He was short and clingy

When we asked if she still loved him when it ended, she replied with a laughing emoji and a firm no. We respect the honesty.

"He was short and clingy. That is it. That is the reason."

She still thinks about him though not because she misses him, but because things went south for him after the breakup. "His life went south and it began after we broke up so I still feel a bit responsible and guilty for him" she said.

What would she want Unripe Pawpaw to know?

"I'm 'better' but not the kind of better you deserve."

Why it ended: He acted like the relationship was not happening

When we asked Angel if she still loved him when things ended, she responded with two laughing emojis and "relationship ke??"

They met in church. He invited her to join a society he never actually joined himself. "He was ignorant and unintentional. Acted like he was too busy to acknowledge the relationship we had." No breakup conversation. They just stopped talking until the silence became permanent.

She still thinks about him specifically when she wants to thank God for deliverance.

What would she want Man in Black to know?

"Nothing. He apparently knows all."

Nobody here is a villain. Nobody is entirely a victim either. What all of these have in common is that love was present, and it still was not enough because love was never the only thing required.

Timing, effort, direction, the shape you need versus the shape someone can give. These are the things that quietly determine whether love becomes a relationship or becomes a memory.

Sometimes you leave, or they leave, and the love does not go with them. It just sits there, in a chat you have not opened in months, in the name that still makes you pause when you see it somewhere, in the answer someone typed into an anonymous form on a random Thursday night.

If they read this today, and they might, now they know.

Sometimes love is not even the problem. We asked young Nigerians to tell us about the one they walked away from while they were still fully in it.  

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