I Heard My Partner Say I Wasn’t His Type — After Five Years Together

I stood in the doorway of our apartment, the rain slicking down the window behind me, chilling the air. The small, ceramic elephant he'd bought me on our first weekend away was clutched so tightly in my hand I thought the delicate porcelain would crack.

That moment was the precise, horrifying climax of five years of careful, devoted love. Everything I'd built, brick by fragile brick, was about to come down. It wasn't a dramatic fight that brought us here: no raised voices or flung insults.

It was the quiet, terrifying knowledge that had lodged itself under my skin like a shard of glass, something I couldn't unsee or unfeel. I looked at Damilola, my Damilola, sitting calmly on the sofa scrolling through his phone, utterly oblivious to the detonation happening inside me.

He looked up then, his smile instant and easy, the one that had disarmed me all those years ago. "Back early, love? Got dinner sorted. Ordered in that food joint you like."

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He didn't see the tremor in my hand, the wet tracks of tears I'd fiercely wiped away five minutes earlier. He saw his predictable girlfriend, the one who was always there, always ready to laugh at his jokes, always ordering the jollof rice.

He didn't see the woman whose soul had been eviscerated by a throwaway comment he'd made to a friend a week ago. I crossed the room, the elephant still digging into my palm. My voice, when it came, was a reedy whisper, barely audible over the drumming rain. "I can't do this anymore, Damilola."

He frowned, finally putting his phone down, irritation flickering across his face. "Do what? What are you talking about, Ballema? It's been a long day, let's eat and chill." "Be your convenience," I articulated, the words tasting like ash.

"Be the comfortable fixture in your life that you love but don't want." His eyes widened, confusion giving way to a defensive hardening. He knew. Deep down, he must have always known this conversation was possible.

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He stood up, towering slightly over me, trying to take my hand. I pulled back. "Don't," I said, the sound firming now. "Don't touch me. You told Miracle, didn't you? That night at the club. You said that when you first met me, you'd been disappointed.

That I wasn't what you'd been expecting, you thought you could make yourself feel differently, but you never did. You just tolerated it." The elephant slipped from my grasp, hitting the hardwood floor with a sharp, sickening crack.

It didn't shatter entirely, but a large piece of its trunk broke off and skittered under the sofa. Damilola stared at the broken elephant, then at me. His face crumpled, not with remorse, but with the frustration of being caught.

"It wasn't like that, Ballema. You're twisting my words. I said I was surprised. People don't always look like their display pictures." That casual dismissal, that instant, reflexive minimisation of my pain, was the final, devastating blow. I finally understood the truth.

He loved me, but he never truly saw me. And I could no longer live with being his accidental choice. I was thirty-one years old, and for five years, my world had orbited Damilola. We met in a niche online messaging forum dedicated to obscure 1980s cinema.

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Our connection was instant, a giddy rush of shared trivia and late-night messages that bled into early mornings. He was witty, intelligent, and seemed to understand the odd, slightly anxious rhythm of my mind better than anyone else had.

When we finally met in person, it felt like fate, or at least, I convinced myself it did. Within a year, we had moved in together. We moved into an apartment in Lekki, blending my clutter with his minimalist aesthetic.

We built a life, the kind you saw in soft-focus advertisements: cosy weekend trips to the Tarkwa Bay, matching coffee mugs, and the familiar, comforting sound of his key in the lock every evening.

Damilola was good to me. He was stable, reliable, and deeply committed to our routines. He remembered my birthday, cared when I had a rough day at work, and always, always made the first cup of tea.

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I truly believed our connection was stronger than anything shallow. It was built on intellect and companionship; the stuff that lasts. Yet, a tiny, corrosive doubt always lingered in the back of my mind, a persistent background hum.

I am a woman who carries a little extra weight, who has a softer face and curves that don't fit the industry standard of 'sleek'. I've never been a woman who turns heads on the street.

I used to scroll through the feeds of his former university friends, looking at the angular, effortlessly stylish women he'd briefly dated. They were all so different from me—slim, sharp features, always perfectly put together.

A gnawing voice would whisper that I was the consolation prize, the one he settled for when the chase for the 'ideal' became too exhausting.

I loved him with a devotion that felt almost painful, trying to be the perfect, indispensable partner, hoping that my depth of love would somehow magically transform me into the type of woman he truly desired. I kept thinking, if I'm good enough, perhaps I'll become beautiful enough.

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The shift from comfortable contentment to sickening insecurity began subtly, the seeds of doubt planted by my own low self-esteem, but violently germinated by his casual carelessness.

The incident with Miracle was the catalyst. It happened a week ago. I'd walked into the kitchen of our apartment after a walk, earlier than expected, and heard Damilola on the phone with his oldest friend. He thought I was still out.

"Yeah, she's great, man. Reliable. Honestly, the attraction wasn't there, not at first. I mean, not what I was hoping for. But she's my person now, you know? She's safe. I figured the physical stuff would catch up."

I froze, my hand hovering over the door handle. Not what he was hoping for. The phrase was hammered into my chest. All my deepest fears, all the self-criticism I'd battled for years, had just been validated by the man who was supposed to be my safe harbour.

I wasn't just not his ideal; I was actively a disappointment. After that, everything he did was viewed through the distorted, painful lens of his admission. I started watching him. I watched how his eyes lingered a fraction too long on the slim, blonde waitress at our favourite bukka.

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I noticed the enthusiastic, effusive praise he gave his colleague, Maya, about her new dress: "That colour really suits you, Maya. You look absolutely incredible." He had never once said I looked incredible. Nice, lovely, fine. But never incredible.

When I wore a new dress, he'd say, "Oh, a new outfit. Looks comfortable." That word, comfortable, became a dagger. He saw me as a comfy chair, not a piece of breathtaking art. I started replacing 'comfortable' with 'not desirable' in my head.

Our intimacy had always been delicate. Regular, affectionate, but never that searing, all-consuming passion I read about or saw in films. I always attributed it to the natural settling of a long-term relationship. But now, it felt like a choreographed routine.

One evening, I tried to introduce some spontaneity by wearing the lacy nightgown I'd bought ages ago, but had always been too nervous to wear. I met him in the hallway. He paused, gave a polite nod, and said, "Oh, fancy.

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Did you check the weather for tomorrow? Miracle's asking about that hike." The air went cold. The beautiful, expensive fabric felt suddenly cheap and pathetic. He hadn't seen me, just an obstacle to the following conversation.

I felt replaced, not by another woman, but by the absence of his desire. The most difficult conflict was with myself. I started scrutinising my reflection with a new, brutal honesty. Every curve, every gentle line, every feature that made me me felt like a flaw, a reason for his lack of primal response.

I loved him, but his subtle rejection was curdling into self-hatred. My love for him was destroying my love for myself. I realised that I couldn't be a vibrant, whole partner if I were constantly trying to shrink myself, literally and figuratively, to fit into a mould he'd never even asked me to take.

The thought of spending the rest of my life loved but never wanted became a dark, unbearable weight. I finally cracked. The night of the broken ceramic elephant, after his pathetic denial, I pressed him, needing to hear the ugly truth without the filter of his self-preservation.

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"Tell me, Damilola. Look at me and tell me. You love me, yes? But you don't desire me, do you?" My voice was steady now, fuelled by a terrifying calm.

He sighed, running a frustrated hand through his hair. He looked genuinely pained, not because he'd hurt me, but because he was being forced to articulate something uncomfortable.

"Don't be dramatic, Ballema. That's unfair. I find you attractive. Of course I do." He paused, and I knew the "but" was coming. "Look, I didn't mean for it to sound cruel, okay? You're beautiful in your own way.

You have the kindest eyes I've ever seen. But you're just not the type I usually go for. That's all. We all have a type." He didn't get it. His words, intended to soothe, only deepened the cut. You're beautiful in your own way.

It was the ultimate backhanded compliment, the polite dismissal of my physicality. "Why are you so obsessed with this?" he asked, genuinely baffled. "We're five years in! I chose you! I love your mind, I love your sense of humour, I love the life we've made.

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You don't have to be someone's fantasy to be their person, Ballema. Isn't love enough?" That was the terrifying, heart-stopping moment of the twist. He wasn't a villain. He wasn't cruel. He was simply complacent.

He genuinely believed that love, companionship, and compatibility were all that mattered, and that a lack of passionate desire was a minor, manageable detail. He didn't think he was asking me to compromise my self-worth; he thought he was offering me a mature, realistic partnership.

He loves you. I don't look at you that way. He said it without malice, and in that brutal honesty, I saw the actual cost of staying. The twist wasn't about his secret obsession with a supermodel; it was about my realisation that I had mistaken his love for validation.

I had stayed, hoping my effort would transform me in his eyes, but his love came with a ceiling, a quiet caveat that my body wasn't worthy of his full, undiluted passion. I was loved, but I was not desired. And for me, that was an unacceptable form of incompleteness.

I didn't want to be his person; I wanted to be my own woman, desired by a man who didn't need to 'grow into' feeling attracted to me. The leaving was quieter than the staying had been. There were no grand declarations, no shouting matches, just a firm, clear boundary being drawn.

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"I need a love that doesn't feel like a negotiation with myself, Damilola," I told him the next morning, my bags packed and sitting by the door. "I need to be seen fully, not just tolerated and appreciated for my personality.

I can't spend the rest of my life in a relationship where I constantly feel like I'm not quite enough, hoping my sheer devotion will make you blind to my reality."

He pleaded, genuinely distraught now that he was facing the loss of his stable life, but I was immovable. His consequence wasn't a dramatic downfall, but the quiet, immediate loss of the partner who had loved him unconditionally.

That was his karma: losing the best thing he had because he never truly appreciated it. I moved into a small studio apartment across town. It was stark, empty, and terrifyingly free. The immediate consequence for me was an overwhelming loneliness, but it was a clean loneliness, unmixed with the residue of unworthiness.

I poured the energy I had dedicated to him back into me. I started small: going to a local gym not to lose weight for him, but to feel stronger for myself. I stopped wearing muted colours that would make me 'blend in' and started wearing the bold, vibrant shades that made me feel noticeable.

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My first conscious act of true self-love was buying a new, beautifully ornate ceramic elephant for my small mantelpiece. This one wasn't a symbol of a compromised relationship; it was a testament to my own strength.

I was a person, fully formed, and I would no longer mistake being chosen for being desired. My worth wasn't contingent on his view. I loved myself first, and that was the most satisfying, complete love I had ever experienced.

The single, clear lesson carved itself onto my heart like an inscription: Love without reverence for who you are, body and soul, is incomplete and will ultimately cost you your sense of self-worth.

Damilola's love was real, but it was also conditional; it came with a physical caveat that slowly poisoned my confidence. I had been so desperate for the stability and companionship he offered that I overlooked the fundamental human need to be both wanted and loved.

We mistakenly believe that love is enough to conquer all. It isn't. Love requires respect for the totality of a person, including the skin they inhabit. My mistake wasn't in loving him, but in trying to earn his desire through my unwavering devotion.

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True love doesn't require us to compensate for our presence constantly. It doesn't make us feel like a footnote to an unfulfilled fantasy. It sees the whole picture and celebrates it, flaws and all.

I had to learn that it is possible to be deeply loved by a good person, yet still be in the wrong relationship. If you are the only one fighting for your right to be fully seen, you will always be losing.

The most profound shift was understanding that I deserved a love that didn't require me to apologise for my body. A love that saw me walk into a room and felt a powerful, instant want.

So, I ask myself now, looking at the vibrant, unafraid woman in the mirror: Are you confusing being valued for your effort and companionship with being fully desired and celebrated for your true, whole self?

This story is inspired by the real experiences of our readers. We believe that every story carries a lesson that can bring light to others. To protect everyone's privacy, our editors may change names, locations, and certain details while keeping the heart of the story true. Images are for illustration only. If you'd like to share your own experience, please contact us via email.

Source: YEN.com.gh