We were both doing our national service when we first met. We weren’t working in the same organization so our lives took different paths after we completed service. I am a health and safety officer while he is a Physician Assistant. I was retained by the organization I worked with but he had to write his license exams and wait to get posted. He couldn’t foot the bill for the exam registration so I took care of it for him. On the day of the exams, I even gave him money for transportation.

After they released the exam results he had to register for their induction, and he didn’t have money for that too. So I paid the bills. It took the Medical and Dental Council about a year before they had their induction so they would be posted for their internship. The internship is an unpaid one. And my man didn’t have any source of income, so I bore all the expenses involved in the internship. I paid for his feeding, transportation, grooming, and general upkeep. I don’t mind doing these things for him. He is the kind of person who would give me everything he has if I ask for it. So now that he is at his low point, I am happy to be there for him.

What I don’t like about him is the way he tries to control every aspect of my life. He has been overprotective right from the day we started dating. In the beginning, I thought he was behaving like that because we were new to each other. I was sure that as time goes on he would change. However, he has only gotten worse. He always wants to know whom I talk to. He would go through my phone and read my chats. After reading the chats, he would call and rain insults on any guy I chatted with on WhatsApp. I can’t go anywhere without him following me around.

Even if I have to walk to my junction to wait for the staff bus, he would follow me. And by the time the bus drops me off at the close of work, he would be standing at the junction waiting for me. His behaviour has made everyone at my workplace know him. They call him my handbag. Sometimes I would tell him, “I don’t want you to follow me. I want to do this alone.” He would give me the excuse, “I am not doing anything so let me just go with you and keep you company.” I know that his intention is to deter other men from talking to me, rather than to keep me company, but I let him follow me anyway.

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If any male friend of mine calls me, he would grab the phone from me, and insult and threaten to curse them. When he calls me and it’s on call waiting, he would pick a fight with me. He doesn’t mind quarrelling with me from my junction to my house just because my line was on call waiting, I didn’t pick up his calls or I was talking to a male while on a call with him. My job is a male-dominated field and I have to talk to the men I work with. I have explained this to him several times but he does not listen. He says, “You are my first girlfriend and I intend for you to be my last. So I will do everything I can to protect what we share. I won’t let my guard down for the same thing that happened to my friends’ relationships to happen to mine too.”

When I used to visit him, he would join me in the taxi till I get home before he would return home. Now that we live together, he prefers to go to the market instead of me. It is the only way he knows that no one in the market is talking to me. Even when I have to withdraw money from the ATM, he offers to do it for me. He tries everything to prevent me from going to town. I dare not smile at a male colleague or friend when I’m walking with him. In all this, he tells me he trusts me. How?

He is not the type that makes friends easily so he barely goes to events. Because of this, when I get invited to events, he finds ways to prevent me from going. I can go on and on about his jealousy for several pages and I won’t finish. He does all this yet I am responsible for what he wears, eats and even drinks. I give him money for upkeep and everything he needs because I don’t want him to feel less of a man. I don’t know what else I can do to prove to him that I love him and I don’t intend to leave him. I believe that if he is able to trust me he will loosen his grip on me.

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Apart from his controlling behaviour, he is a cool guy. He takes care of my family when any of us is ill. He also runs errands for my parents when the need arises. These are the little things he does that keep me holding on to him. I keep wondering what I will do if he gets a job and proposes that we get married. Will I be able to put up with his unwarranted jealousy for the rest of our lives? I say unwarranted jealousy, because I haven’t done anything for him to think of me as a cheat. I am a twenty-five-year-old who has completed university yet I am still a virgin. How can he think that I will cheat on him?

I have asked him several times why he does the things he does. He told me, “I love you too much to lose you to anyone.” I have complained countless times about how his behaviour affects me but he does nothing about it. Has anybody here experienced this before? How did you deal with it?

–Evelyn

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