He dumped me! No, he didn’t. I did. He made me do it so, in essence, he was the one who dumped me. I only became the vessel through which the dumping was communicated. I was dying of anger. All the anger, I couldn’t express them because any time I tried, he would say; “You are overreacting.” With time, I learned not to discuss things that got me angry. I absorbed them and breathe them out before they pushed me to act angrily.

But that day, the anger was extreme. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I picked up the phone and said; “Kelvin, I can’t do it any longer. If I don’t take care, this relationship would be the death of me and I don’t want to die anytime soon. It’s over between us. Don’t ask me to reconsider my decision because I’ve thought of this for a very long time and everything in me says I should move on without you.”

I kept quiet. Waiting to hear his reaction. I thought he was going to act crazy or go down on his knees and tell me he was sorry and that it wasn’t going to happen again. Yeah, I told him not to ask me to reconsider my decision but deep down, that’s what I wanted him to do.

He asked me calmly, “Is that what you want?” I hesitated to answer. And then he asked again, “Would that make you happy?” I answered, “Yes. Everything you do drives me crazy. I can’t continue.” He was quiet for a while and he said, “If that makes you happy, so be it.”

I dropped the call and I cried. I cried like a baby. Two years of relationship just ended as though nothing mattered. He didn’t even try to fight for the relationship. He just let it go. I was the loser.

Two or three days later, I saw him with another girl at the campus cafeteria. They bought stuff and I saw him paying for it. They didn’t see me but I monitored their every step. It was obvious she was the lady replacing me. So I sent him a text; “It’s been only three days and you have a new girl? You left me because of this thing you are walking with?” I got a response ten hours later; “She’s not my girl. Point of correction, I didn’t leave you. You did!”

I was relieved, for two reasons; One, he hadn’t replaced me and two, he cared enough to respond. I thought of calling him to tell him how much I’ve missed him and how much I wanted our relationship restored but the pride in me wouldn’t let me. So I hatched a plan.

Steve became the bait. He had wanted to date me for a long while so I thought of using him to get Kelvin to act. I went everywhere with Steve. People started talking about us and Kelvin saw us together a couple of times but he didn’t pick the bait. Nothing triggered him but rather intensified his closeness with that girl. I saw the two of them more often than he saw me with Steve. I couldn’t stand it again so one night I sent Kelvin a long message on Whatsapp.

I told him how much I’ve missed him and how much the memories of us keep haunting me. I said so many lovely things about our past and about the future we didn’t have. It was a long message. That kind of message it takes ten minutes or so to finish reading. The message wasn’t read until I slept. I was hopeful to receive a lovely reply in the morning.

I opened my WhatsApp immediately when I woke up and his response was; “Cool.”

Cool? I spent almost two hours of my life to write that message. I spent another hour editing every line just to make sure it said exactly what I meant to say and all I get back is “Cool?” That wasn’t cool. I called him immediately.

“Hello, Kelvin…Did you read what I sent you last night? I mean did you read every line to understand what I meant to say? You read everything and thought “cool” was the appropriate response?”

“Adaku, what do you want me to say? Maybe you should tell me the kind of response you expected so I give you one right now.”

I wanted him to say he misses me too and wanted us to come back. I wanted a long message as a response to a long message. How couldn’t he get it that I was desperate to have the relationship back on track? I wanted him to say all that but when he asked what I wanted him to say, I told him, “Don’t say anything. Bye-bye.” I hang up right there.

Some minutes later, I had a notification. “I knew he was going to send a message. That guy can’t live without me.” I thought to myself. I opened my message app. It was a message from MTN reminding me to enter into a raffle. I just lied quietly on my bed ashamed and at the same time angry for expecting so much from someone who didn’t give much when we were together.

From that day on, I decided I was moving on. I told myself, “Kelvin doesn’t deserve all the attention and love I’m giving him. He would meet a girl who will make his life such a hell that he would miss all the love I once gave him.”

I tried moving on but it was a small campus so I kept seeing him all the time. I saw him with other people, especially women. He was always laughing and looked like he was having the time of his life. He looked completely moved on and that killed me on the inside. All I wanted for him was to be so miserable so he run back to me.

One early morning, I picked my bag and started walking to his hostel. I Knocked and his roommate came to open. He told me Kelvin wasn’t there. I told him I would wait for him. I lied in his bed and took a very deep breath. I didn’t know what I was going to tell him. He was surprised to see me but I was happy to see him. We had a very lengthy chat. Something we never did when we were together.

I told him I wanted him back. I told him why I left and I told him he was annoying. He said, “If there’s something you don’t like about someone, you talk about it. You don’t absorb it.” I answered, “When I tried talking about it, you told me I was overreacting.” He said, “When I say talk about it, I mean talk about it without drama and without anger.”

“Are you calling me a drama queen?”

“No, I’m not. I’m only saying…”

“No, You just did. You called me a drama queen”

“You’ve started again…this is what I’m talking about.”

And then we were quiet…for a long while. So I ask, “Are we back together again?” He asked, “Is that what you want? Would that make you happy?”

We were kids pretending to know what love was about. That day, I learned something. I learned I didn’t like to be called drama queen but most importantly, I learned I needed to talk more about my feelings than to just absorb them. That became my strength and also my weakness. I spoke about all the little things I didn’t like about people. I lost friends that way but I was a happy person.

We broke up again and came back together. Some months before our graduation, we broke up. During our NYSC, we broke up like fifteen times and came back together the sixteenth time. He had a job and started ignoring me. We broke up again. When I had a job, we could barely talk but we were adults so we handled it as adults do; we cared less.

We’ve been married for three years and even in marriage, we still break up and come back together. Maybe the fault isn’t from Kelvin. It’s me who’s always trying to find fault and when we get angry and fall apart, I’m always the one who brings us together. Kelvin has grown used to my antics. He said I enjoyed breaking things up because I love to fix things. That’s not true. I only love the beginning of things. I break it up so we could begin again. And anytime we begin again, he’s careful and he’s loving and he’s all giving until it becomes old again. Everything needs a refresh button just like computers have a restart button.

My son, he’s two years now. He’s a lot of trouble. He cries, he kicks, he bites, he falls. Sometimes I get tired of him. I’m tired of his troubles. I’m thinking maybe I should break up with him too and he’ll learn to behave. ???  

—Adaku, Lagos-Nigeria

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