After meeting Jide* at a basketball game, Bisi*(25) knew she had feelings for him. But what started as a cute campus romance slowly deteriorated into a relationship built on secrecy, religious guilt, and emotional manipulation.
In this story, Bisi shares how she became entangled with Jide, and how it took distance, time, and hindsight for her to finally understand what she was lucky to escape.
How it all started
I met Jide in 2019 at my school’s stadium. I’d gone there with a few friends to watch a basketball match. After the games ended, people stayed back, and it turned into a small party.
One of my female friends already knew Jide, so she introduced us. We started talking casually about school and places we’d lived. He mentioned he attended my primary school in Lagos*, though only briefly. At the time, it felt like an insane coincidence. Looking back, I don’t think it was true.
He said he had moved to Ibadan* to live with his grandparents, but he didn’t talk much about his family or his religion, and I didn’t press for details. We exchanged numbers, and that same night, we started texting.
I usually had night classes, and because of that, we saw each other often. He didn’t stay on campus, but he’d come over after my classes and sometimes stay the night. I eventually started going to his place too. I realised early on I liked him, so letting him into my life felt easy.
The relationship
About a month in, Jide asked if I had a boyfriend. I didn’t. My previous relationship ended after the guy moved abroad. I didn’t like him that much, so there wasn’t any significant heartbreak baggage. I wanted to give dating another shot, so I said yes when Jide asked me out.
What started as something casual quickly turned serious. He insisted we define the relationship, even though we’d known each other for barely a month. I hesitated, but he stayed persistent, and I fell. It didn’t help that he was charming, fine, and attentive. We kept the relationship lowkey. Only a few close friends on both sides knew. Jide often talked about how girls liked him and threw themselves at him, including the same girl who had introduced us. He didn’t want to take any chances.
At first, everything felt sweet. We saw each other almost every week, spent long hours together, and enjoyed each other’s company. In hindsight, that constant reminder of how desirable he was should have been a red flag, but at the time, I brushed it off.
Our first major issue came a few weeks later when I bought tickets for us to attend a school play together. We had discussed it beforehand, so I assumed it was settled. On the day of the play, he went silent and was unreachable.
When he finally responded the next day, he claimed he had to rush to church. That was when he casually mentioned that he was a Jehovah’s Witness. The revelation caught me off guard. I asked why he hadn’t mentioned it earlier, and he explained that Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t allowed to date people outside their faith. That meant he technically wasn’t even supposed to be with me.
At first, I didn’t believe him. I went online, researched it, and fell into a rabbit hole. That was when I realised he wasn’t lying. Their belief system differed sharply from what I was used to, and dating outside the church was forbidden.
I apologised for doubting him, and that moment changed the dynamic of our relationship. From then on, he constantly framed himself as someone “breaking the rules” for me, like I was the reason he was constantly at war with his conscience.
When COVID hit in early 2020, we became long-distance. At first, we talked every day. Then communication slowly declined. Calls stopped, replies became shorter, and sometimes he disappeared completely.
Once, he stayed offline for almost two days. I got worried and kept trying to reach him. When he finally responded, he told me an elaborate story about injuring his hand with a mirror, fainting, and ending up in the hospital. I immediately apologised for being insensitive.
I tried everything to revive the connection after that, but nothing worked. Each time he disappeared and resurfaced, he always had a new excuse.
In June 2020, he told me he was getting baptised. He explained that baptism meant full commitment to the church. He also said he had confided in a mentor about our relationship, who advised him to end things because I wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness.
That conversation broke me. I deleted his number to protect myself from the heartbreak, but I was visibly affected. My mum and friends knew something was wrong, but I didn’t tell them anything. I cried constantly and tried to distract myself by learning how to sew.
Getting back together
A month after the breakup, Jide texted again. He said he couldn’t hold it in anymore and just wanted to check on me. We started talking again as friends, until he suggested getting back together. He said we had to pretend we weren’t dating so his conscience wouldn’t bother him. Against my better judgment, I agreed. That was when things got worse.
Once, he asked me to send nude photos. When I refused, he got angry and told me I wasn’t the only girl he was talking to. His words shocked me. I told him never to use other women’s interest in him as a threat. Before we resolved that fight, I noticed a coursemate had started posting his pictures on her status. When I confronted him, he explained it away, claiming he was just being kind and she was using that opportunity to throw herself at him.
When school finally resumed after the COVID break, Jide started acting increasingly strange. He grew inconsistent, avoided plans, and constantly locked his phone. Something he never did before. He spent a lot of time with another girl in my class, Sarah*. He insisted nothing was happening and said he was only mentoring her.
A few weeks later, at a birthday gathering with Sarah, I saw a sexually suggestive photo of him on her phone. He had sent the same photo to me privately. That moment confirmed he’d been playing me the entire time.
The next time we hung out, I went through his phone and checked his messages. I saw how he texted Sarah, giving her just enough attention to keep her interested without committing to anything. When I confronted him, he admitted he had kissed her once but insisted nothing else had happened. I didn’t know what to believe. My feelings clouded my judgment, but I knew his actions hurt me, and I wanted out. After that, I stopped believing anything he said.
Not long after, during our last time together, I stayed over at his place. I told him clearly that I didn’t want to be touched and I wasn’t in the mood, but he ignored me and tried to force himself on me. When he saw blood, he stopped and started apologising.
I didn’t know how to process what had happened, so I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t even know what to call it. He apologised repeatedly, and somehow, we kept talking. I don’t know why I didn’t cut him off then, but something inside me was already broken.
The aftermath
Soon after, he grew cold and distant, avoiding me out of his own guilt. When I confronted him, he said he was “just tired” and wanted to end things. Later, our mutual friends told me he framed the breakup as a moral decision. He claimed his religious conscience forced him to leave because I wouldn’t let go otherwise. I couldn’t believe it.
After we broke up, I found out he had already moved on to four other women, referring to one as his girlfriend. He lied to them, saying we had broken up long before and made sure we never crossed paths in school. He told them the same story he told me: that he only showed me kindness and that I was throwing myself at him. After I told a friend everything, she got so upset on my behalf that she gathered the other girls, and we all confronted Jide together. When we asked him to show us the messages he sent each of us, he claimed his phone had been formatted. The audacity was crazy.
Looking back, the lies, exaggerations, and manipulation were always there; I don’t know why I indulged him for so long. But that confrontation allowed the last scales to fall off my eyes, and I cut him off completely.
He had a case with the school and struggled to graduate that year. I reached out once to check on him, but in his usual fashion, he told me lies and details that didn’t add up, so I just left him to his devices. Someone that untruthful is dangerous, and I’m glad he’s no longer in my life.
READ NEXT: Na Me F—Up? I Used ChatGPT to Manage My Relationship
