This is the second part of a three-part series. Link to the previous part is at the end of the story.
“The days ran into weeks, weeks into months, and soon, I was done with my service year. I returned home to Port Harcourt (PH) unbothered because Ivy was also done with school. She had graduated and was returning home too.
This meant we were no longer separated by a distance, our family homes were close, we could see each other whenever we wanted, hang out, go on dates. It was a magical time. 2022 felt like it was going to be our year.
There’s a set tradition in my family where everyone learns a skill after school and service before their entry into the labor market. As expected, after my return home, it was time for me to take up my part of that tradition.
My father got me enrolled in the National Institute of Information and Technology (NIIT) there in PH, where I was to take web development and digital marketing.
A little backstory before we continue, during my uni days, I wasn’t really committed to school. It’s not to say that I finished poorly, no, I just could have done better if I focused and paid attention, but I didn’t.
Hence when I got into NIIT, I decided I was going to stay committed and make the best of it that I could, and I got so serious about it that I was made the class representative.
It was an amazing thing to happen, but it was also incredibly stressful and would soon take its toll on my relationship with Ivy. The institute was far from my house, so I spent quite some time on transit.
I left home early in the morning and returned at 2 PM every day, where I would hang out with Ivy at my brother’s house.
She would cook and pack a lot of food to work from home and bring some leftover food for me so that whenever we met, I had something to eat. Ivy was always thoughtful like that.
It became a routine for us, we saw each other every day, it was amazing.
Until it became exhausting.
The routine, the commute, the pressure and extra responsibilities from NIIT all became too much. There was also the fact that I was constantly hyper aware of the women at the institute and got tempted many times to have a thing with them.
It all started to drain me, and I didn’t know how to communicate properly that I had a lot going on and needed a break from the routine to focus on my final project from NIIT.
I thought if I took a break from the relationship, I would be able to focus on my project, finish it quickly and go back to loving my woman. I was wrong.
Ivy didn’t take it well. She thought I was actually trying to break up with her and maybe to get ahead of it, she broke up with me first. It nearly drove me crazy, and I had to explain things to her, tell her I wasn’t ending things.
I just needed a break from our routine to focus on things that required my full attention.
She understood, and we got back together. We took a break from our routine, and I rushed through my exams and projects so we could go back to the way we were.
Through the years till this point in time, I had been using porn to manage a majority of my sexual urges and there was a shift in the kind of porn I watched. It was no longer regular sex, I was watching things like BDSM, threesomes, rough sex, and other extreme porn.
My libido was being controlled by porn, but I didn’t realize it. I thought, “Oh, this is just who I am, I just have a high sex drive.” I never saw it as an addiction. It wasn’t even that I was in denial, it simply never crossed my mind.
Of course, this started to affect our relationship. I wanted sex more than she did. Though she didn’t always feel like it, she tried to match my energy. She tried to keep up, did things just because she knew I wanted them. We were able to keep our ship sailing smoothly.
Ivy soon got into law school, thankfully in PH. She chose to stay in PH because of me, just as I went to Benin because of her.
Our relationship went on, and I kept using the same strategy to satisfy myself. When she wasn’t around, I’d watch porn, masturbate, and calm down. When she came around, if we both wanted, we’d have sex.
But the dynamic I liked early in our relationship, where I’d come to her, touch her, kiss her, and if she wasn’t in the mood, she’d say so and I’d back off, started to fade. I never forced or tried to coerce her into sex. I’d already built a habit. A fix.
Something I kept feeding.
Still, it started to happen more often. I would approach her wanting sex, but she sometimes refused. Not because she didn’t care, but because she genuinely wasn’t in the mood.
When she rejected me, I felt upset. I wondered, “Why am I so attracted to you and you don’t want me?”
It almost felt like obsession mixed with love. But looking back, love wasn’t the whole story. The real reason I couldn’t keep my hands to myself was because I was chasing a fix.
I needed that release. I don’t even know whether it was addiction to porn, masturbation, sex, or something else. Whatever it was, I craved it every time I saw her.
She saw it too. She saw a guy who couldn’t stay away. She’d turn me down sometimes, and I hated that rejection. I didn’t fully grasp how she could love me and still say no.
So around 2022, I stopped asking entirely. I switched completely to porn and masturbation for my fix. If she felt like having sex she could come, but I’d stopped requesting it. Porn became my default when I got horny.
By 2023, the addiction had spiraled badly. I needed more intense stimulation just to get hard. When she left for law school, she came back occasionally, but mostly she was focused on school.
And that was the point I cheated on her. For the first time.
I cheated on Ivy with Sandra. She was a whole vibe, and we clicked instantly. We became friends, flirted, made dirty jokes, and eventually we had sex. That affair lasted around three months.
It was nothing emotional, there were no feelings at all, it was just sex to the both of us.
I can’t recall if it was late 2023 or early 2024 when Ivy found out, but she discovered everything at a group outing.
Sandra was there, and Ivy was supposed to come along as well but she decided not to. Then she changed her mind at the last minute and came. It was at the outing she got hold of my phone, and saw my texts with Sandra, the flirting, the sexting, and the appointments.
She was furious. It blew up in front of my friends. It wasn’t massive, but everyone knew I cheated.
Ivy slapped me and stormed off. I felt terrible. I chased her, begged her, but she told me not to even follow her to the car. So, I stayed behind. Embarrassed, humiliated and above all, feeling very terrible for what I’d done.
That night passed. I called her the next day, but she’d blocked me.
Eventually I reached her. I begged continuously. I hurt her deeply. She cried so much because she never believed I would hurt her like this. And yet, there she was.
Believe it or not, I didn’t want to cheat. If someone had told me earlier that I was the kind of guy who cheats, I’d have laughed. I didn’t see myself that way.
But the porn and masturbation habit had made me lustful, always horny. So, when I was in vulnerable situations, like with Sandra, I couldn’t resist.
Ivy broke up with me but later, after months of emotional processing and begging, she forgave me. We got back together.
By then she was finishing law school and starting her NYSC, both in 2023. Post-affair, by 2024 she got a job and had to move to Lagos. We were already fragile from the breakup, and distance made everything harder.
She struggled in Lagos, stressed from work, commuting, traffic, and the cost of living. I was still in PH trying to make things work.
I had sold NFTs, made some money, and remained faithful. We went through the usual relationship brouhaha. We fought, argued, but we stayed together. By late in the year, I finally landed a job. Just not in Lagos.
We still didn’t have a plan to live in the same city again. The distance was a problem. Again.
Ivy brought up the discussion about moving abroad, and while we both agreed on relocating, we argued over the destination. It was the UK vs Canada. Eventually, we agreed on UK but then something happened that forced our plans to take a breather.
I lost my mother in August. It was a painful, tragic loss that dealt me a strong blow. Ivy took a break from work and came back to PH for the funeral. She held me through that period until it was all over, and she had to return to her job in Lagos.
Shortly after she left, I got a new job that came with an assistant, Chika.
Chika was beautiful and flirtatious. She would make passes at me, but I made it clear from the start that I had a girlfriend. While she said okay, she didn’t back down which was surprise because I was used to women taking a step back whenever I made that declaration.
Chika didn’t. She kept flirting and joking, until I started to flirt back. It was all a joke, I told myself. It was harmless.
Ivy and I were having issues, I secretly resented her for choosing Lagos over PH even though she had a job offer here at PH. But I also understood why she chose Lagos, because she wanted to leave home, she wanted to try doing her own thing on her own, plus I had cheated on her.
Sure, we got back together but I wasn’t in a position to dictate anything, or make my displeasure known over her choice, so I secretly stewed in my resentment.
That resentment lingered. The distance was draining our relationship.
We argued more. “You didn’t call me this morning.” “You haven’t called all week.” All sorts of drama like that.
She had male colleagues in the law firm who’d message her, try to ask her out and whenever she told me about them, I got jealous. But I also trusted her, for the most part.
Things continued to sail like that, until she broke up with me. Again.
Continues in part three…
He asked that you read with empathy, and now he’s asking for something else: your thoughts. What would you have done in his place?
This is the second part of this story. Read part three here (link when ready).
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