Heartbreak can be character-building… after you get over the initial feelings of wanting to die. A normal aspect of the dating experience is heartbreak, and every time you give love a shot, there’s the attendant possibility that it might end in tears. Relationships end— amicably sometimes, but often not.
We asked people about their worst heartbreak experience at the hands of a woman, and the responses show that in love and romance, men do not have a monopoly on wickedness.
Jane, 27
Omo. This was the worst experience of my life, and I would never wish what I went through on anyone. We called ourselves best friends, and our mutual friends would make fun and snide remarks about how we were fooling ourselves. We were the envy of everyone. Now that I look back at it, they were envying rubbish. In hindsight, I should have taken certain criticisms seriously, but I was in love. Man, we told each other everything or at least that’s what I thought. Long story short, this woman got into a relationship right under my nose, lied through her teeth, and cheated without any remorse.
She was claiming personal issues that she needed to work on and needing space from our relationship to be with herself, and even though I didn’t understand what she was saying, I agreed because this woman was fake crying ugly tears and shit. I started feeling guilty and agreed to the breakup, so it seemed like it was a mutual decision for our friends. Immediately we broke up, this woman started dating someone else and I didn’t know.
It’s been over a year now, but I can’t lie, I am still reeling from the shock and betrayal. Like is this how you treat someone? Not to talk of a friend, best friend or even a partner? The funny thing is I am only just realising after the relationship ended that I was manipulated and gaslighted a lot. She made me do things I wouldn’t have done because I thought that was what she wanted. Only to find out later she never wanted any of those things and was only just telling me to make me believe she cared for me. Fear women.
All the things she said I would inevitably do like cheating, lying, hurting her badly, leaving her for someone else etc. I never did any of them. Instead, she did all those things to me. All the things she never did for me or wanted to do with me, she’s doing it for this new person effortlessly. It’s like a whole new person that I never knew, the switch-up is crazy. I still feel shame at the way I was treated and even though I know that shame is not mine to carry, I actually don’t know how to navigate it. My brain is fucked up totally.
I didn’t get an apology for the way she treated me until almost a year later. A part of me still wants her to suffer for all the ways I suffered, and the other part feels guilty for wishing someone I once loved that kind of pain. Some days I wake up with blind rage and hope that she gives her all to someone, makes them a centre of her life and just when she thinks everything is perfect, it comes tumbling down so that she can know what it feels like to be on the other side.
Funnily, she blamed me for our relationship ending; talk about lack of self-awareness and accountability. I know people will probably say I am stupid or something, but I really wish I could move on the way she moved on so fast. It feels like I never existed or she never cared for me. She looks happy with her partner now though, and I can’t help but think how cruel life is, like why do kind-hearted people have to suffer so badly?
I know I wasn’t perfect, but I loved this person with my entire heart and made every single decision with them at the centre. I even gave up a great job offer I had because it meant relocating, and I didn’t want to be far away from her (nobody knows this because I am too ashamed to think of the stupid sacrifices I made for love) only to be dumped a few months later.
You know the saying that people aren’t thinking about you in the ways that you are thinking about them? That was my experience. The healing process is slow but steady, and I can’t wait to be fully whole again. People say men are trash, but lesbians are the entire refuse dump. I know I will find the person made for me soon, and maybe everything that has happened will make sense because right now, nothing makes sense. And yes, even after all this time.
Truth is, you never know how to handle betrayal until it hits you in the face. I used to think that nothing my partner did to me would make me hate her or never want to talk to her again. When I hear that people block their exes or say they can never be friends with their previous partners, I used to call them childish but there is a way somebody will treat you, even you sef will want to wait for them on the road and beat them.
When this heartbreak touched me, I hated this person so much. I couldn’t even stand them. I was disgusted by the fact that I had been in love with a lowlife with no sense of morality. For the first time in my life, I understood why people break up with their partners and block them afterwards. Man, I was reciting affirmations to myself in the mirror because my self-esteem was in the gutter. I believed something had to be wrong with me for people who come into my life (friends and lovers) to betray me always. I started praying to God to heal my broken heart, and I am agnostic o. I have stopped saying “it can’t be me” because it was me 100 times over, and there was nothing I could do.
We talk occasionally, and that is because we are doing some work together, unfortunately. You never move past heartbreak; you just learn to live with it until it becomes a part of you. There will always be that dull ache that never leaves you. That is if you have ever truly loved someone.
David, 26
I was in my final year at the University of Lagos, and I had not really dated anyone throughout the period, so I decided to give it a try. I got into the talking stage with this girl, and everything seemed okay and cool, at first. Fast forward, we got to like each other, and I asked her to be my girlfriend. She said yes.
Things went smoothly for two months. We were having fun and enjoying each other’s company, though she didn’t want sex because she said she wasn’t ready. I respected her decision and the relationship was fine with me, even without having sex. As we neared our three-month mark, things started becoming sour. We spent less and less time with each other and the few times we saw, we would fight constantly.
I asked her what went wrong, but she kept giving excuses till one day she told me she was going to a party that her ex had invited her to. I was not fine with it obviously, but she went anyway. I saw her status that night, and it wasn’t nice. I played it down as it was just a party, right? lol. The next time we met, she told me her ex had come back into her life, and went on to explain how she was still in love with him. That’s how we broke up. I was hurt, and it was during the exam period, but I had to chest it. I had to hide the hate and hurt I was feeling and focus on my exam.
Afterwards, I hated her and blocked her everywhere because I was really in love with her and I didn’t expect such a thing. I still have her number, but we don’t talk anymore. I’ve moved on from everything. I don’t know how I moved, but time heals I guess.
Omii, 24
The short answer- She got a girlfriend.
The long answer- It was a situationship that lasted eight months. I actually thought it was heading somewhere, but she suddenly became very distant and withdrawn. Little did I know she had already entered another relationship, meanwhile she left me pining after her, thinking we were going to be coupled up one day. She didn’t even have the decency to tell me. It was a mutual friend of ours who took pity on my pathetic conduct and put me out of my misery.
I didn’t wait for an explanation from her. I did what I knew how to do best; detach. I blocked her on every social media platform, deleted every text and conversation and deleted every photo and album. I essentially cut off her access to me. She reached out to me in February last year and told me she had been trying to contact me since our breakup. She apologised. A lot. I’ve forgiven her but kept my distance. I made sure we rarely talked. This month is the first time we’ve spoken since May, 2022.
Halima, 27
My worst heartbreak by a woman would be the time I realised I was emotionally manipulated, lied to, gaslighted, cheated on and taken for granted. It took a while, but I was eventually able to break up with the person.
Even after we broke up, it took a really long while for me to cut ties. I guess with time I started to realise my worth, and I knew I could forgive a person and still choose not to have them in my life.
Chidi, 22
I was in a mid-distance relationship with a girl just right before college. We dated for about eight months. I proposed we break up before we both went to university because we gained admission to different schools at the same time, and I knew how hard long distance was for her. I wanted to make things easier for both of us, but she insisted we stay together (this was around month 4).
She broke up with me two months later over the phone but called me back after an hour crying and saying we should get back together immediately because she couldn’t deal with the thought of us being apart. I agreed. Fast forward to month seven, and she’s no longer texting back, ghosting for days at a time while still being extremely active on social media and posting stories with different guys. I confronted her. This is usually really hard for me to do because I’m avoidant by nature, but I finally grew the balls to do so. Anyway, she ended up swearing that there was nothing to worry about. Only for this babe to cheat on me with said guy on her stories and break up with me right before Valentine’s Day and still ask me to be her Valentine??? Talk about confused and deranged. All this was happening while she was also asking me what her new man would like for Valentine’s Day (she moved on immediately. I mean she was pretty much already in the new relationship before breaking it off with me.)
I was livid. I felt betrayed. I felt like I could go insane because it was one of those “running off with the guy she told you not to worry about” stories you’d only read on Wattpad. What hurt the most was the fact that I asked for us to split before getting my heart broken but was fooled into staying regardless.
I’m not in contact with her anymore. God forbid. She kept trying to sneak her way back into my life but again, God forbid. I moved on over time. Time healed me. I just took a break from the dating scene and turned myself into an academic weapon. I learned to love myself a whole lot more. I also learned to make decisions on my own and to stand firm without swaying.
Fisayo, 22
I was in love with this girl who said she didn’t want a relationship but was doing relationship things for me, so I really thought we’d end up together, exclusively. She was seeing other people and although I’m monogamous, I was under the impression that I was her primary partner and also deceiving myself that I could hold out until she was ready to be with me. That was until I noticed she had turned off the notifications on her phone except for this particular girl, and it turned out they were having a thing. She later said we shouldn’t have sex anymore, and I basically became regular to her. I mourned for a year.
My psychologist almost sent me to the psych ward, and I had to be back on antidepressants and mood stabilisers, some of which made me gain over 20kg in 4 months. I stopped talking to her, but we recently reconnected. I moved past it by forcing myself to hate her till I didn’t care enough anymore and could stop hating her.
I learned not to enter anything with someone who doesn’t want the same things you want. Also, don’t enter things with people who don’t know what they want.
Anthony, 31
I had been dating this girl for about 6 months when I found out she was cheating on me with a popular Nollywood actor. I was so in love with her so I still begged her to stay and to choose me (Don’t judge me abeg. I thought I was going to marry her). Anyway I forgave her and eventually we moved on.
Of course, at the back of my mind I suspected she was still seeing the guy and I couldn’t 100% trust her. Fast forward to a few months later, I took her to a hotel for the weekend because she had been stressed from her job so I planned this staycation for her to relax. The minute she got into the shower and I saw her phone was unlocked, I went through it as fast as I could. The messages, and photos I saw broke me to pieces. Not only was she still talking to the actor guy, but they were dating. Like, that was her MAN according to their conversations. And he was well aware that she was also dating me, but she had told him she was gonna end things with me and was only waiting for the right time.
This was not a “he said, she said” situation, I had receipts. Till this day, I don’t think i’ve healed from the whole thing. This girl was my entire world and she treated me like nothing. After God, fear women!
