Earlier this year, he gave me spare keys to his house. “You don’t need my permission to visit me anymore, my love. You have my keys now. Show up when you want to.” I gladly accepted it. I know he is doing all this to show me that he is trustworthy. I also play along. I show up unannounced from time to time, and so far I haven’t seen anything suspicious. It doesn’t matter anyway. I know who he is and what he does when he thinks I am not looking.

That’s the thing about having access to your partner’s phone without their knowledge. You get a front-row seat to all their secret deeds while they go on thinking they are fooling you with their “Goody two shoes” act.

The first time I knew something was off about him was the very first month he proposed to me. I am talking about April of last year. I was with him while he was on his phone. I asked if I could go through his photos and he said no. Still, I snatched the phone from him and opened his photos. I saw photos of almost naked women. Lots of them. “Why do you have these kinds of pictures on your phone?” I asked. He said it was just for fun. “I will delete them if they make you uncomfortable.” And truly, he deleted them immediately.

After that moment, I felt the need to explore his phone further just to see what else he could be hiding. But it wasn’t easy to get a hold of it. He protected it like it was a national treasure and I was an enemy spy. Although I was itching to know what he was keeping away from me, I took my time. I knew that it was just a matter of time before I would get what I was looking for.

In the meantime, I focused on the relationship. Despite my distrust for him, he wasn’t a bad boyfriend to me. He still isn’t. He takes care of me financially. In other aspects, he is loving and caring. When I am doing something that’s not right, he makes it his job to set me straight. We don’t live together but he treats me like his wife.

He has met my family and declared his intentions to marry me. They all adore him. He has also introduced me to his folks as the girl he wants to marry. Even when his uncle who lived in the USA came to Nigeria for a brief visit, he asked me to come and meet him. When I got there, he introduced me as his wife-to-be. That’s what he tells his friends too. He doesn’t call me his girlfriend to their hearing. “She is my wife,” he says.

I believed all the wifey things he said to me and about me until I got hold of his phone in the first month of this year. I searched his WhatsApp messages, Facebook messages, and Telegram ones too. The things I saw appalled me. This man flirts with almost every woman who cares to give him that kind of attention.

He posted me on his status, and one of the girls he is talking to asked him, “Who is she?” This guy responded, “That’s my sister.” There was another girl he had invited to his house. The girl asked him, “How can I visit you when you are engaged?” He answered her, “My woman has nothing to do with your visit. So why should she stop you from coming over?” There are many other girls he is flirting with.

On Facebook, he only sends friend requests to women. As soon as they accept it, he starts flirting with them. After a while, he invites them over. So far, I haven’t seen any girl accept his invitation yet. Most of them ask him for transport fare first. And he refuses to send it.

In one of his chats, the girl asked what he wants from her. He told her he wants to marry her. Flirting with other women is one thing. Proposing marriage to someone else when he had promised to marry me is another story of its own. It only made me think he didn’t mean it when he came to see my people that he would like to marry me.

Even if it’s true that I am the one he wants to marry, then why is he out there cheating? I keep asking myself if it’s because he wants to marry a decent woman, keep her at home, and then satisfy his wild side with the kinds of women he is busy flirting with. Honestly, if that’s what he wants then I am not going along for the ride.

I haven’t confronted him about the things I saw. I know men like him rarely change. He will only cover his tracks to make me think he has changed to convince me to marry him. That’s why I am quietly monitoring him. Once in a while, I go through his messages and he is going at it strong. I am acting like the sweet and devoted girlfriend he expects me to be but deep down I know I will not marry him.

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I am only sticking around for the benefits. I am just using his money to fill my bank account. When I get the amount of money I want, I will leave him without a word. I am so good at my act that he doesn’t suspect a thing. All he knows is that I don’t trust him. Even that one, it’s because I refused to sleep with him without protection until he gets tested for STDs.

The whole trust thing became an issue. “It hurts to know you don’t trust me,” he would say. I know it’s all part of his act so I don’t let it get to me. Since then, he has been begging me to get pregnant for him. In my mind, never! Lord knows I won’t allow such a thing to happen. How can I tie myself to a liar and cheat?


His affairs with other women aside, I was going through his stuff recently when I came across some of his documents. It said he was forty years old. I was surprised because when we started dating, he told me he was thirty-five. I couldn’t believe that even his age was a lie. When I confronted him he said, “I didn’t lie. I only miscalculated my age.” I just laughed and said okay.

The last time I checked his phone, he still hadn’t changed. We are all actors in this relationship. He pretends he is faithful, and I pretend I don’t know anything about the secret life he lives on his phone. For now, we are the perfect couple. Let it remain so while I keep saving all the money I get from him. When I am ready to dump him, he won’t even get closure. I will just disappear like an apparition.

—Yvette

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