The Nigerian experience is physical, emotional, and sometimes international. No one knows it better than our features on #TheAbroadLife, a series where we detail and explore Nigerian experiences while living abroad.
Chioma* (41) was not looking for love, but she decided to give Patrick* a chance. In this story, she shares how his rush for a quick marriage and prolonged trip to the US exposed his ulterior motives.
Where do you currently live, and when did you leave Nigeria?
I live in the United Kingdom. I left Nigeria in 2021.
What inspired you to leave?
It was a mixture of things: I earned about ₦200,000 to ₦250,000, around 2018 and 2019 as a nurse in Nigeria. But things were getting harder and it felt like I was just coasting in life. It was so bad I resorted to having roommates because I couldn’t afford to rent a place by myself.
I had also just gotten out of a six-year relationship and needed a change.
Additionally, two of my colleagues travelled out around that time. One to the U.S., the other to the U.K.; they told me about the process and I decided I’d travel.
How does your life in the UK compare to your life in Nigeria?
Well, I used to stay in Lagos, and you know Lagos is crazy. I would wake up as early as 4:30 am to leave for work. After work, I would wait until around 7 pm before leaving the office so the traffic would have lessened. I’ll end up getting home around 9:30 pm and then have to do it all over again the next day. I kept getting sick as a result and realised it was not feasible anymore.
Here, I live in a town where life is simple. People are friendly, and nobody cares if you’re rich or poor. Life is easy. My health is better, and I even have time to go to the gym. In fact, people don’t even believe my age when I tell them because I don’t look it.
Mostly, I go to work, I go to church, and I take walks. If I weren’t speaking to you right now, I would be at the seafront just looking out at the sea and chatting with people. Life is calmer.
I like to travel and it’s easier to travel to other countries from the UK. All I have to do is think of where I would like to go, get the visa and go there.
Since I’ve been here, I’ve gotten a Schengen visa, an American visa and a Canadian visa. I travel wherever I want for brief holidays. I travel two or three times a year.
That’s so cool! Let’s talk about love and relationships. How’s your dating life?
I’ve found most relationships in the UK are transactional. Everybody’s trying to get something from you. Once Nigerians hear that you live in the UK, the first thing they ask is if you are a student. If you are, they don’t want to talk to you.
But if you have Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), then they’ll want to talk to you. As soon as they hear you’re a nurse, they become interested because it’s very easy to visit or stay in the UK as a nurse’s spouse. It feels like people see nurses as a poverty alleviation scheme.
Nigerians in the UK come into your life and they love-bomb you because they want something. It’s always transactional. If a Nigerian approaches me now, even if he’s a British citizen, I’m not interested.
Right now, I’m not even interested in dating at all. I have my peace and I like it.
Is there a particular experience behind this dating policy?
Yes, his name is Patrick*.
When I left Nigeria, I had just broken up with someone after a six-year relationship. So I wasn’t looking to date. I wanted to focus on myself. Then a Nigerian colleague started telling me about her husband’s childhood friend who had seen my picture and wanted to meet me.
I was hesitant at the time but she kept on talking about the guy. I was like, “Okay, let me just see the guy.” So she sent me his picture and contact, and we started talking.
So how did that go?
I was three years older than him but I told him my age early on and he said he was okay with it.
He was a student but I didn’t mind. Most people shy away from students because they think students just want to get married to you to get papers. He had graduated and he was on his postgraduate visa. However, he wasn’t really doing anything.
He was a care worker but he was what they call “bank staff.” It means you’re basically on standby to cover shifts for actual staff when they call in sick or something. So you don’t really have a contract with a hospital.
I told him he needed to find a stable job because he couldn’t rely on that long term. I rewrote his CV, took his details and started applying to jobs for him.
Did he get any of these jobs?
No. Out of 20 I helped him apply for, he only got callbacks from six. But when I tried to help prepare him for them, he refused. You know how men behave. He said I shouldn’t tell him what to do. He ended up not getting this six either.
Did your relationship get serious?
I’m old-fashioned. If I’m dating someone, before I really get close to them, I have to know who they are accountable to. So early on, I started talking to his pastor because he was a very active member of his church. I introduced him to my brother and I started talking to his mother too. One of his brothers is a nurse in Nigeria, so I even started coaching him for his exams to come to the UK. I was getting really close with his family.
About four months into our relationship, I went to spend a week with Patrick. While I was there, we went to his church to see his pastor. His pastor said the next time he saw us, he wanted it to be about our marriage and that I shouldn’t stay at his place again without being married to him. The pastor asked Patrick for a wedding date, and he said it would be around March or April of the next year.
But by December, he started rushing me to get married. I took him to see my brother and after a lengthy private chat, my brother asked me if I was sure about Patrick because he did not have a stable job or any real plans. But I assured my brother that we were going to work it out.
That December we made plans for the new year. We lived five hours apart by train. So I started applying for work near his area. He lived in a shared accommodation so the plan was we would rent a small apartment for a year, then buy a house. I would use my money to make a deposit on a place for the two of us and he could contribute towards the mortgage. But none of that happened.
What happened?
He started disturbing me about travelling to the US. He said he wanted to go see his brother who lives there because they had not seen each other for about six years, since he left Nigeria. But he had been denied a US visa multiple times.
I was traveling to the US in March to see my family as well so we made plans to go together. I had gotten a US visa for myself and even helped multiple friends get theirs too so I understood the process. I helped him apply and this time he got it.
The plan was to leave together in March so he’ll see his brother and I will also take him to see my family. But as soon as his visa came in November he started saying he wanted to go immediately.
I told him it was fine, he could go see his brother and we would still go back in March to see my family. So he left for the US. But after just a week there, I started noticing he was distant over the phone. We had planned he would only be there for ten days but he overstayed and I started getting worried after two weeks.
I had said yes to a job offer in his area and he was supposed to come back and rent a place we could move into. But then he told me his brother wanted him to try to get a job in the US.
He suggested I come to the US and find work as a nurse because he heard nurses there make a lot of money. I told him I had been to the US several times and I knew enough nurses there to know they work longer hours and lose so much of that money to taxes.
He had always been funny with money. He would complain about my studio apartment, my small car and my phone I’ve had since 2022. He started showing me how big his brother’s house is, and I said, “I don’t care about your brother’s house.” I think that got him angry. But I really did not care what his brother had. We needed to plan for our own selves.
I asked him if wanted to live in the US illegally or live in the UK legally? He insisted he wanted to follow his brother’s advice and look for work in the US. I told him I was not about to beg a man to marry me and stopped talking to him. But that was not even what hurt the most.
Okay. What else happened?
I was discussing with a colleague and when I told her we weren’t together anymore, she told me she had a confession.
What was it?
She and Patrick had dated before and they were introduced by the same friend who introduced me to him. When he started rushing her for marriage after barely two months, she knew something was wrong and broke up with him.
That’s insane.
She wasn’t the only one.
My friend had introduced him to a third nurse who he also tried to rush into marriage. I felt chills learning this about him. I found out his postgraduate work visa was expiring. That was why he was so eager to find a nurse to marry. But the American visa came at the right time and that’s how he left.
I feel they (Patrick, my friend, and her husband) must have discussed ways for him to remain in the country and decided to match him with nurses because it’s easier with nurses. I felt sad knowing that they had now introduced him to me for that reason. I was on my own and I didn’t even really want to date.
What was it like being with him? Was he a nice guy?
Well, to be fair to him, he was nice. But I don’t know whether it was all a facade. He was nice, at least at the beginning.
But in hindsight, there were some odd behaviours he exhibited. Once, while I was at his place, he went to a friend’s wedding but did not invite me to come along, so I waited in the house, wondering why. Or when we went to his church and he made me go through a different entrance than him.
I think about all the times he would joke about how I made more money than him, so I should give him money. And I did. I gave him money for his birthday, I paid for a license he needed for a job, and I gave him money for his trip to the US.
He even asked me to get him a credit card in my name or buy him a phone with my card, promising to pay me monthly for it. Fortunately, I did neither of those things.
So that’s how things ended between you two?
He has decided to be an illegal immigrant in the US. That’s his decision. I have peace now. If I meet somebody else, fine. If nobody comes, I’ll still be happy. It’s better to have peace of mind than to end up with someone who just wants to use you.
What was dating like for you in Nigeria, and how would you compare it to dating in the UK?
I miss Nigeria aAnd I miss Lagos. I haven’t been to Nigeria since I left. I love Nigerian men in Nigeria. I used to love going to karaoke, or salsa. There, you could just be sitting down, and a man would just come to say hello to you and you just chat. It’s not the same here in the UK. Maybe it’s because of the town I live in, but you can dress up with makeup and look so fly and nobody will talk to you.
Here, if you want to date, you have to start with a dating app. And funny enough, on the app, you might actually be talking to someone on your street. Otherwise, people usually meet through introductions from mutual friends and acquaintances.
Would you say it’s lonelier there?
It is. I make good money as a nurse. But it’s hard. For instance, on my street, I’m the only black person. Most of the black people I know are colleagues at work, so it’s kind of lonely. There’s a Nigerian restaurant in my area, but it’s mostly white people that go there for the African experience.
The only opportunities to really meet other black people are when someone has a party, maybe a child dedication or a wedding. But at my age most of the Nigerian men I meet are married with their wives here or back home in Nigeria. And I’m not going to date anybody younger than me again.
We have a WhatsApp group for Nigerians in my area and it’s quite supportive but I do get lonely at night. There’s really nobody to talk to. All my siblings are married. Sometimes when my friends are telling me about their relationship issues, I tell them they are lucky to have somebody to argue with.
So you’re really not talking to anyone currently?
At the moment I’m not dating anyone. Another friend of mine wanted to introduce me to her husband’s older brother. He’s a single dad living in Nigeria. I refused. I don’t want to be a poverty alleviation scheme, please.
I’m not dating currently. I did date a white person, though.
Okay. What was that like?
He was nice. But there were cultural barriers. Like he did not get how we Nigerians use insults playfully as terms of endearment and would get offended when I was only joking. And he didn’t understand the idea of me having to send money to my family in Nigeria. He just did not get it.
When I cooked for both of us, the spice was too much for him. When he cooked, it was not enough for me. I don’t know how Nigerians that are married to whites do it, it’s hard.
Also, they do not really care about marriage. They just have “partners.” You’ll see couples that have been together thirty years, but they are not married. I believe in marriage, and I believe in having kids in marriage. But white people don’t really see it as a big deal.
He kept asking me to have a kid with him. I think he really wanted a mixed-race daughter. I told him I was old-fashioned and we would have to get married first before we had a child.
How happy would you say you are on a scale of one to ten, and why?
Eight right now. I have peace and I believe that is even more important than money. It’s not ten because it does get lonely.
Do you want to share your Abroad Life story? Please reach out to me here. For new episodes of Abroad Life, check in every Friday at 12 PM (WAT).
