For Nigerian women, there is a particular kind of relief that comes with being able to say, “I have someone.” Add a ring and the questions change. Nobody is asking when you will settle down anymore. Your mother can relax. The aunties have moved on to somebody else. Friends are discussing aso-ebi and, depending on how public your relationship is, Instagram already knows there is a wedding somewhere in the future.
But what happens when the relationship everyone is congratulating you for is making you miserable?
That question feels particularly relevant after the recent conversation around Nigerian-born entrepreneur and content creator Olubukola “Sugar” Akinpelu, popularly known as Nurse Sugar. In her new memoir, My Life as Sugar: A Memoir of Everything I Built and Everything I Hid, and a recent interview with Ifedayo Agoro on Diary of a Naija Girl, Akinpelu spoke about the distance between the successful life people saw online and what she says she was experiencing privately in her marriage. She discussed a surprise proposal, marriage, financial abuse and what she describes as unhealthy patterns she did not immediately recognise.
Her account has since become the subject of competing allegations online, which is another reminder that the public rarely knows everything happening inside somebody else’s marriage. But one line from the description of her memoir captures something many women will recognise: “The world knew Sugar. It never knew me.”
How many relationships look completely different from the inside?
Commitment has become one of the ways we measure romantic success. Five years together means something. Ten years means even more. Engagement suggests intention. Marriage is treated as arrival. Yet none of those things tells us whether two people trust each other, communicate well, remain faithful or even particularly like each other anymore.
And for Nigerian women, walking away can come with another set of calculations.
Research among unmarried women found pressure coming not only directly from parents but indirectly through family gatherings, friends and colleagues. Another 2026 study of Nigerian female academics and doctors found that some experienced workplace stigma because they were single and childless.
So imagine finally finding the relationship everyone has been asking you about, only to admit it isn’t working.
You are 34. You have been together six years. Both families have met. Perhaps an introduction has happened. Maybe deposits have been paid. Your married friends keep telling you no relationship is perfect. Your mother reminds you that men are not beans. Someone inevitably asks what exactly you expect to find “outside.”
Suddenly, staying is not only about love.
It is about time.
There is a reason “I’ve already given him seven years” feels like an argument. Psychologists call a version of this the sunk-cost effect: previous investment can influence our willingness to continue with something even when the current reality no longer justifies it.
Relationships are obviously not business investments, but the emotional arithmetic is familiar.
There is also potential. Perhaps he will stop cheating. Maybe she will become less controlling. He will eventually communicate. She will finally trust you. Once you marry, things will settle.
Sometimes they do.
But potential needs evidence.
An apology is evidence of regret. It is not automatically evidence of change. If the offence changes but the pattern remains; betrayal, apology, reconciliation, temporary improvement, betrayal again, then forgiveness can quietly become maintenance.
This does not mean cheating must end every relationship or that one terrible season means two people should separate. Long relationships are messy. People hurt each other. Couples survive infidelity, financial crises, grief, infertility, career problems and periods when they barely recognise themselves, never mind each other.
The more useful question is what happens after the problem.
Does anything actually change?
If you complain that you feel neglected, does your partner become more present or simply more defensive? After cheating, is trust genuinely rebuilt or are you now expected to become a private investigator? When you disagree, can you still speak without humiliation, threats or contempt? Are both people repairing the relationship, or has one person become its full-time maintenance department?
And perhaps the hardest question: if you met this person today, knowing everything you know now, would you still choose them?
Not the person from five years ago. Not the person they promise to become. This person.
There is another practical reality women do not discuss enough. Sometimes leaving is difficult because the relationship has swallowed everything around it. Your friends are his friends. Your weekends revolve around him. Your finances are intertwined. Every future plan has “we” attached to it.
Maintaining your own friendships, earning capacity, interests, and sense of self is therefore not preparation for a breakup. It is healthy adulthood. Love should expand your life, not leave you unable to imagine one outside it.
None of this is an argument for leaving whenever love becomes difficult. Neither is it an argument for staying because you have already stayed this long.
Perhaps we simply need better measures of commitment beyond the obvious.
Look instead at the ordinary evidence: respect, accountability, safety, honesty, affection, the ability to repair what gets broken and whether both people are still doing the work. Because yes, ten years together can tell a beautiful story.
But sometimes, it only tells you that ten years have passed.
