by Chinwe Okafor

Social media broke loose yesterday when a Twitter user, @shecrownlita came online to tell a tale of an untimely end of an 11 year relationship.

The two lovers had been dating for that long period since she was in her third year in the university at the age of 19, few years down that path, she gets a job before him and even splits her salary.

Now time for her efforts to be crowned, he takes off and someone else enjoys the finished product. But was Tunji, the supposed loverboy, really to blame? Truth is we only know half the story and since it is coming from the victim’s angle, we can’t and won’t understand what really transpired in the relationship. There are a lot of reasons a guy like Tunji would up and leave and here are 10 reasons why.

1. She wasn’t into the marriage idea- indirectly. He may have been dropping signals of an impending happily-ever-after and she may have seemed oblivious to the entire antics.

2. The relationship got boring. The spark, the reason they both got into the relationship in the first place isn’t defined anymore, the laughs are no more. Everything seems so serious and regular.

3. Duration doesn’t equate to a life long affair. Sometimes longer periods in relationships do not necessarily determine the longevity of the affair and if it would necessarily transcend further into marriage.

4. Too good for him. He may indeed have some form of complex and may be of the line of thought that she is too good for him e.g. getting a job before him or a better pay and may have thought she’d be better off with someone else. It may not have been an immediate thought, it could have been building overtime.

5. Try someone else. Having dated just one person for a very long time always takes its toll on the relationship especially if it isn’t genuine. Couple most times split just to see what its like with someone else and may end up liking it.

b. The feeling that he is missing out on something because of the relationship. That something could be Life, Dreams, Travel, Adventure, Sex etc. Whatever one’s desires are. Ultimately everyone is looking for happiness and we all have different ways of finding it. Sometimes we feel that this relationship may not be our best path to it and end up making other choices.

6. Things changed. Sex became boring, you don’t do the things you normally do together anymore, communication became such a bleh. This normally occurs when a couple have stayed so long in a relationship and seem to think that by default things should be great. Not knowing a relationship is a constant locomotive that must be engineered at every point to keep it going. It’s true, our priorities change, our desires change & our perspective of happiness changes. Even after our 20s. Some of us are more stable than the others though.

7. Fell out of love. He may have fallen out of love with her a long time ago and was just looking for an easy way out but didnt find one hence the route of just announcing hours to getting hitched to someone else. Or he simply wasn’t in love in the first place and kept looking for it until he found it.

8. Tolerance. There is a certain time that will come, love transforms to tolerance and everything one’s partner does becomes an overbearing burden as you believe you owe that much been that you both have come a long way. Thing about this is that it just doesn’t last long.

9. Compatibility. Over time, Tunji may have realized that the two of them aren’t compatible enough to spend the rest of their lives together and he wouldn’t want to hurt her more by going into something his heart isn’t entirely in only to call it quits sometime into it.

10. Lack of common interest. People evolve overtime. Change is a constant thing. You may grow older realizing new things in the course of your journey that doesn’t necessarily go with what the two of you felt way back when. I for one wouldn’t want to end up with someone i have no common interest with regardless of how long we’ve been together. Marriage is a long time to make today’s mistakes over.

Truth is, while i reiterate saying, we do not know the other side of the story, he may just have been doing the victim a favor of helping her not damble into something that eventually won’t last. As hard as it may be right now, and not that any of the afore mentioned justifies his actions, she will see the benefits of this action.