₦airaland Forum

I would like to thank everyone who responded to my post. You have been so wonderful and honest to me and I really appreciate your contribution. Opening this thread was important to me because I needed to get some anonymous unbiased feedback about my situation. Since my family does not have all the information that I posted here, they are unable to advice me appropriately. I posted the facts just as they were and I gave you all my arguments. Given the overwhelming rejection of my line of thought, it is clear that I need to do away with it.

I am going to stick with my relationship and I am going to have a positive attitude going forward. My girlfriend is a great woman and I love her with all my heart. Even when we argue, we never go below the belt, we always have a debate. She states her arguments without raising her voice and I state mine. If she is right, I apologize to her and if I am right she does the same. This is my first relationship and it is has led me to the point where I have had to make the most important decision of my life at a relatively young age. I posted my story here because I sincerely wanted to know if I was making the right call based on the facts that I presented.

To everyone who responded, I am very grateful for your honesty. May God bless all of you.

sexkillz: [color=#000030]The sad truth is that OP is talking nonsense because he now has a green card. . . Where was all these long sermon about values before? I can't even bother typing further. . .
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Please do not judge me. I have been with my gf for 3 and a half years and I owe it to her to let her know if we are in this for the long haul. This is the most important decision of my life and I need to get it right. We have had a wonderful relationship and the issues I mentioned are the biggest reservations I have and I just want to know if they are legitimate. My family says that they are legitimate but I love her too much. My goal of posting is to get an objective third party assessment. I dont want to make the wrong decision because I am blinded by love. If I do, my entire family will be ready to say "we told you so."

Hello Nairalanders,

I have a very big problem. I started dating an African American girl about three and a half years ago, shortly before I graduated from the university. I was 22 years old and didn’t think much of the relationship when it started. However, after graduation, we became very close. We spoke every night for many hours and we developed a very strong bond. Unfortunately, because I graduated during the height of the recession, I could not find a job. In addition, my quest to find a job was also more challenging because I was a foreign student on a student visa.

About 5 months after graduation, I was able to find a job with a multinational corporation but the job required me to have a green card before I could start. I told my gf about this and she decided to marry me to help me get a green card. However, we did this in secret. She did not tell her parents about this and neither did I.

Our relationship has been very wonderful and she has been very good to me. My first apartment after getting the job was a cheap roach infested place. She would travel two hours every Friday to spend the weekend with me. Despite the hardship of our surrounding, we were happy just being with one another. This girl loves me and her loyalty to me has been unflinching. However, as I have grown older, I have begun to really embrace my Nigerian identity. When I first came to the US, I thought I was relocating forever. But as I have grown older, I have come to cherish my Nigerian identity. I have come to realize that I am a visitor in America and that I will always be considered a second class resident or citizen. In addition, when I visited Nigeria for the first time in 6 years, I felt happy being home. It was the first time in 6 years I had been in a society where I wasn’t different, where everyone was like me.

As I have gotten older, I have come to realize that marriage in America is different from marriage in Nigeria. In America, the divorce rate of first marriages is 50% and the consequences are financially devastating especially for the person who makes more money in the relationship. For some reason, my gf has had a hard time figuring out what she wants to do from a career standpoint and if we got married officially, chances are that she would be a stay at home mom. I have no problem with that because I love her and I believe that if she home-schooled my children they will turn out fine because my gf is very intelligent. In addition, as the son of two working parents, I wish I spent more quality time with my parents growing up. However, I am concerned that if the relationship went sour, I will be in trouble with alimony, child support etc. For some reason, I feel that Nigerians have stronger family values. It appears to me that Americans do not see divorce as a taboo the way we do. Although my gf tells me that she wants to get married only once, I feel like the 50% of Americans who get divorce told themselves the same thing.

In addition, I also plan to relocate to Nigeria within the next 10years and because of that, I really would like to be with a woman who has roots in Nigeria; a woman who would have a support system (family and friends) when we moved back to Nigeria. Although, my gf has said that she is ok with moving with me to Nigeria permanently, I find it hard to believe that she will think the same way in 10 years.

I am very confused right now. I feel like if I break up with a woman who did nothing wrong to me, Karma would catch up with me. In addition, I almost feel like I would always compare everywoman I meet with my girlfriend and chances are that they may not have the same commitment to my future as my gf has. On the other hand, I have stopped having peace of mind in my relationship. I keep thinking about my relatives who have had failed marriages to African American women and I keep wondering whether I will end up like them.

My parents are against my relationship. My mother told me that I cannot know if another woman will be as committed to me because this is my first relationship. She has told me that I shouldn’t be a weak man. According to her anecdotal evidence, most marriages between Nigerians and African Americans fail.

I don’t know what to do. I want to be happy, I want to have peace of mind, and I want to have a clear conscience. What should I do?

Any advice you can provide will be deeply appreciated.