I always find it hilarious when people feign shock whenever they hear a woman cheats or cheated in a relationship. I guess it’s not all the time they get to see women striving in a male-dominated field.
Well, at 21 Magazine, we support women’s rights and their wrongs too, so, we asked seven Nigerian women to share the juicy details of a time they stepped out while in a relationship.
Deola, 27
I was in uni back then. I had a boyfriend that I, let me say, cherished. He was my first ever serious relationship. He was kind and it wasn’t a bad relationship, but I can’t call it a great one either, because 18 year old me set the bar quite low – you just had to be a handsome and decent person for me to catch feelings. We had this innocent naïve freshers love. But I was hot and my seniors didn’t allow me rest. I resisted the attention for a while, until I met this gorgeous man who was a post-graduate student in the same faculty as me and my then boyfriend.
I had seen him around and I really fancied him but I left it as an unattended crush. I can’t really remember how and when we met, but we started texting like crazy. I didn’t tell him I had a boyfriend because he didn’t ask, and when he did ask, he honestly didn’t care. At that point, I didn’t care about being in a relationship because it was getting boring.
The texting turned to heavy flirting and one day he came to my hostel to see me for the first time, when he hugged me to say goodbye, he had a hard on. I went to his house one evening to watch a movie and we started kissing, it was so terrible. We didn’t have penetrative sex because I was a virgin but we did everything else. I remember feeling underwhelmed because he wasn’t as good as his texts.
Don’t laugh at me, but I went for seconds just to see if the first time was just a bad day for him but the guy just didn’t know what he was doing. I had to ghost him because remembering our encounter made me cringe. Once in a while, I and my ex would pass him by at our department.My ex never found out and we are still very good friends till this day.
Amanda, 25
I used to swear that if my man should cheat on me, I would leave immediately. One day, I found out that he had been seeing another girl while we were both on a break. From Snapchat texts, I could tell they were exchanging nudes. He even went as far as giving her the rose sex toy to use “while she thinks of him,” in his own words. It pained me so much, but I just kept it to myself because the relationship was on a thin line, and I really wanted it to work.
I went on holiday to Nigeria with my family for a month, and I reconnected with a childhood friend, let’s call him Fred. Our families were really close and I had a crush on him in nursery school. My siblings never rested with the ship names, but as teenagers and adults, we were always just friends.
One day, Fred, a couple of other friends and I were partying at a lounge. I was too happy that day because that’s the littest I had been in a long while. I wanted to pee but I was drunk so I asked Fred to come with me to the bathroom, and he did. I don’t know how it happened, but next thing we were kissing and my dress went up. We had sex and we went back out to continue partying.
He dropped me at home and afterwards, the friendship continued as it normally was. I wanted to tell my boyfriend because the guilt wanted to kill me, but when I tabled the matter on the group chat, the verdict from my girls was to keep shut.
Ire, 29
I cheated on my ex because he was a chronic cheater and liar, and I would never have rested until I did my own back. I purposely slept with one of our mutual friends because a part of me wanted to make it easy for him to find out, but no one snitched, so I had to tell him myself. The way he shed tears, I almost couldn’t believe that this was the same man who shamelessly flirted like a fool in women’s DMs, even with women I knew and slept around all through our relationship. The experience was beyond satisfying, and realizing I wasn’t even having great sex, I was more inspired to leave his toxic ass.
Vanessa, 26
My boyfriend and I have been together happily for 7 years. At some point in our relationship though, I realized that I like girls. There was a time I jokingly told my bf to test the waters on how he feels about my sexuality, and he made the most icky comment on threesomes. Since then, I never brought up the topic.
Sometime in 2022, I moved houses and met this woman who lived in my new building. We got close because we were the only tenants who spoke up against the stupid rules our Landlord always tried to randomly impose. On some weekends, because she worked a 9-5, she would come to my apartment and we would cook and watch documentaries. She even met my boyfriend a couple of times during those weekends. In one of our conversations, I told her I was bi. I wasn’t hitting on her, the conversation just happened, and she was pretty clear about being straight.
Imagine my confusion when we were hanging like we normally do and she asked to kiss me. Mainly out of curiosity, I agreed, and it was a nice kiss. It continued for a while and I had no intention of telling my bf, because I didn’t want it to stop. It eventually did, because she traveled out of the country.
Ose, 24
I told my man at the time that I fell asleep early but I was actually with this guy I met on IG that was too sexy for his own good. My guy texted me that night, that he ordered from my favorite restaurant and wanted me to come over. With the head I was getting, the food could get rotten for all I cared. I still went for dinner with the other guy but I couldn’t follow him home again that night because my boyfriend was being extra suspicious of my movement. I almost got caught because I forgot to delete some screenshots I was sending to a friend, I was sha able to lie my way out of it.
Tina, 26
I have only cheated once in my life, and if I hadn’t, I would never have met the love of my life. I was in a 4-month relationship then, and I actually missed my ex. It didn’t help that he always texted me about how much he also missed me. I left the relationship because it was getting toxic, from both sides, to be honest, but I was still so attached to him. I would always go to places I knew he would be; I would make a private snap and add only him to it, and so on. It was crazy, lol.
Thankfully, the person I was dating then, travelled to his state for his uncle’s birthday, so I used that opportunity to go and visit my ex. I couldn’t try it when he was in town because he constantly told me that my ex was shadowing our relationship, and we would have huge fights about it. I told myself that if I slept with my ex one last time, I would get him out of my system completely, so I went to pay him a visit an evening when my boyfriend wasn’t around.
That night, one of my ex’s friends had come to visit him, and he brought his own friend along. I had sex with my ex that night. The following week, I got a follow request from my ex’s friend’s friend (try to keep up), that I had met the night I had sex with my ex. As soon as I accepted it, he sent me a direct message. He complimented my looks and didn’t waste time to ask me out on a date. My ex used to keep a lot of useless friends so in my mind, I interpreted his ask as him just trying to sleep with me. My bf was still out of town, my ex was being hot and cold as usual, and I liked the restaurant the other guy suggested.
He came that evening to pick me up. At dinner, the vibes were immaculate. He was charming and it helped that his wallet was fat. I think we both knew that we were going to f-ck at the end of the night. And we did, but I didn’t stay with him all through the night. That’s how I started sleeping with my boyfriend and this new guy, Mr. A. I wasn’t scared that my boyfriend was going to find out, in fact I was praying he would find out because I didn’t know how to break up with him, and I was catching serious feelings for Mr. A. He knew he was the sneaky link but he thought I was seeing my ex. When he found out the actual situation, he blocked me everywhere. I used the period he stopped speaking to me to do some introspection and break up with my bf, though like a bad habit, I started seeing my ex again on and off. Mr. A later on reached out to me, and we met up and had sex. During pillow talk, he spoke about being serious with me. At first I was skeptical because my friends kept advising me that no man would make a woman that cheats a girlfriend, and he was only keeping me around to show me shege.
Well, I won. We’ve been dating for 2 years now.
Toni, 27
I’m not sure where to start from but here goes.
There was this guy who had been on my case for the longest time, but I never gave him a chance because I just felt like he was beneath me. He watched me get into so many serious relationships, all the while still waiting patiently to date me. I always kept him around for some reason, I guess it’s because he was rich, although illegally. Eventually, I started to see him differently. Whenever my boyfriends would fall short, he would stand in and come through for me where they couldn’t. One day, I was really emotionally down, and he supported me in such an amazing way that I seriously started considering a relationship with him.
Bear in mind that I was in a serious relationship myself.
We started talking more often than usual, and it was going really well. He would send me huge amounts of money, spoil me, and just make me feel like I was the only girl in the world. One day, I had to travel for a work trip. During that work trip, we got a lot more intimate, and I told my best friend that I was going to let him do all kinds of things to me when I got back because I made up my mind to explore things with him.
When I got back, we met up and had sex for the first time. There is no reason why the sex had to feel so good. I almost slapped myself for taking as long as I did to be with him. The sex was beyond amazing, he was spoiling me rotten.. what else could a girl want?
My boyfriend eventually found out, and although I promised him (my bf) I was going to stop seeing the other guy, I just couldn’t. I was addicted.
Eventually I had to break things off with him because as the saying goes, all that glitters isn’t gold.
I was ready to give up everything for him, meanwhile he had a wife, child, and wanted me to be his second wife.
God forbid.
*This article has been edited and condensed for the sake of clarity and names in this article have been changed for the sake of privacy.
