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The topic of how young Nigerians navigate romantic relationships with their earnings is a minefield of hot takes. In Love Currency, we get into what relationships across income brackets look like in different cities.

How long have you been with your partner?

We’ve been together for four years and married for two.

How did you meet?

We met in the comments section of an Instagram Live during the COVID lockdown. The IG Live was a competition—I can’t even remember the reward—but I noticed Lydia kept trying to win. I checked out her profile, liked what I saw, and DM’ed her. 

Lydia also recognised my username from the comments, so she responded. We had a good conversation that day, which subsequently became regular. After a few months of talking, we met at a mall. I brought her flowers and asked her to be my girlfriend. She accepted.

Smooth!

To be honest, I had the confidence to ask her out because I’d just gotten a job. After my NYSC, I was jobless between 2019 and the first few months of 2020, surviving on my parents’ goodwill and the small design gigs I got here and there. 

But COVID brought remote work, and I landed a $200/week brand design gig on a freelancing site. I felt financially ready for a relationship. 

What was Lydia’s financial situation?

She was still a corps member, but her PPA paid well. Her salary plus the NYSC allowance brought her income to about ₦133k. 

Lydia is a big saver, too. She used to complain about jumping buses to work in the morning, but when I suggested she take a cab, she’d be like, “With which money?” That babe could stretch ₦5k for a week and have ₦100k chilling in her account. She sort of infected me with her saving habits, too. 

For instance, when we went on cinema dates, she’d insist we shared a pack of popcorn rather than buying two. I was the one paying, but she hated what she termed “unnecessary spending”. 

Lydia would ask me to outline my expenses every week so we could track my spending and find out if I was overspending on certain things. We really worked well financially. That, among other reasons, made it clear that I had to marry her. We got married in 2022. 

But I lost my job shortly after my wedding. 

Damn. What happened?

The startup I worked at folded three months after I started working with them. I joined after the agency I worked with on the freelance site didn’t need my services anymore. It seemed like a blessing in disguise because the new job paid ₦600k. I’d just moved my family to a ₦1.2m/year apartment when my employers asked me to go home. 

I thought it was a bad dream. Like, we were just two weeks into the new apartment. I’d spent all my savings on the wedding and relocating to the new house. We had no bed frames or chairs in the sitting room — we gave away the old set in my old apartment because we thought we’d buy a new one. To top it all, Lydia had resigned from her job when they refused to give her time off for wedding preparations.

Yikes. How did you both manage?

We got about ₦300k in money gifts from the wedding and managed that for a while. My mother-in-law also sent us plenty of foodstuffs after the wedding, so we used that to see road. We got plastic chairs for the sitting room and slept on a mattress on the floor for months. Our friends thought we didn’t want them to visit because we were honeymooning. In reality, it was because we were crazy broke.

We were also job hunting like mad but with little success. I should note something here: Lydia hardly nagged me. Of course, she wasn’t happy about our situation, but it was more like both of us complaining about our financial crisis rather than fighting each other. We approached the problem from an “all hands on deck” standpoint. 

We knew we couldn’t afford unnecessary expenses like a Netflix subscription, eating out, or even eating chicken with every meal. We began a Sunday tradition of visiting our parents to eat dinner and take foodstuff home. I even pretended to prefer drinking garri at night so we could stretch meals for longer. We were in this situation for about seven months before Lydia got a job in 2023. Her salary was just ₦150k, but it was a lifesaver.

Phew. How was your job search going?

I applied to and interviewed at countless places but got nothing. I even abandoned the job search for a while and focused on getting freelance design gigs. But it was tougher to get foreign clients because no one trusted Nigerians. I got a few local design gigs that brought ₦15k or ₦20k occasionally.

At one point, I thought I was being attacked spiritually. I knew several designers making serious money even as freelancers, but I was just stuck. I started taking prayers seriously. The whole situation affected my self-esteem and led to arguments between me and Lydia. 

What kind of arguments?

I constantly carried a “woe is me” expression, which affected our communication. I didn’t want to talk or joke because I didn’t find anything funny, but Lydia wasn’t having that. She was like, “We’re working out this money thing together, and I’m not complaining. Why are you letting it affect our relationship? Is it money you want or this marriage?” 

I tried to explain that I didn’t feel comfortable without an income as the man of the house, but Lydia never accepted that as a valid reason. She also didn’t understand why I complained when she transferred money to my account to handle my personal needs — she knew I wouldn’t ask for money. I felt useless, and she thought I was too proud. 

Our relationship really changed a lot. We went from talking about everything to sitting in silence for hours. It’s just funny because when people hear that a wife is feeding the husband, they expect the arguments will be about the woman feeling frustrated about taking care of the bills. In our case, our arguments were primarily due to my feeling sad for myself and allowing it to affect our communication. 

My moodiness worsened when the time came to pay rent, and I couldn’t find any means to loan money to augment the ₦400k my wife had managed to save. We had to move to my brother’s boys’ quarter apartment. 

Depression and shame almost killed me.

I’m sorry you went through all that

Thank you. For the rest of 2023, we survived on my wife’s salary and my brother’s kindness. We also had to get on birth control after having a pregnancy scare. Imagine giving birth while squatting in someone’s house. 

Thankfully, things changed in May 2024. My brother helped me get my current job and gave us ₦400k to add to the ₦500k my wife had saved to get our own apartment. The house is still mostly empty, but we’re slowly getting the necessary furniture. I’m just glad that things are finally looking up.

I’m happy about that as well. I hope your relationship is getting better too?

Gradually. We aren’t as close as we used to, but I’m trying to make up for it by communicating more. At least, I can now afford to take us out to eat once a week. I couldn’t afford to buy her a Valentine’s gift this year — even though she swears she loves the love notes I gave her — and I look forward to finally being able to afford to buy her gifts next year. 

What does your relationship budget look like now?

The weekly dates don’t cost more than ₦10k. Besides that, I’ve told my wife I’ll handle all the household bills from now on. She can just save her salary for emergencies or do whatever she wants with it. Knowing her, she’ll probably just save it. 

Have you considered planning for a safety net?

Oh yes. I know better than just relying on one job now. I save at least ₦40k monthly for rent, and I’m actively looking for another job on the side. With another income source, I can look at investment options.

What’s your ideal financial future as a couple?

I really want us to own our house one day soon. Rent is such a huge expense, and once that’s out of the picture, I believe we can look at achieving other things.

Interested in talking about how money moves in your relationship? If yes, .

*Names have been changed for the sake of anonymity.

NEXT READ: This Abuja Teacher Doesn’t Believe in Girlfriend Allowance

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