I left Tobi on a Wednesday, which is a strange day to end anything. Weddings happen on Saturdays, breakups happen at midnight after a fight but I packed my bag on a Wednesday afternoon while jollof was still burning slightly on the stove, and I remember thinking, even my rice is confused right now. We had been together three years. He was the kind of man who remembered your cousin's name after meeting her once, who paid the okada man extra "for the stress of Lagos traffic," who prayed before every meal even when we were just eating suya standing by the roadside.

Everybody loved Tobi. My mother loved Tobi more than she loved some of her own children, I'm convinced. But love, I learned, is not the only ingredient in a relationship. There is also becoming. And Tobi wanted me to become smaller. It started small "Why do you need to go for that training in Abuja, we just started building our life together." Then it grew "I don't think you should take that promotion, who will cook when you're always in meetings?" I told myself he was just scared, just a man raised to believe love means holding on tight. But holding on tight and holding someone down can look the same from the outside, and only the person inside the grip knows the difference.

The night before I left, we didn't fight. That's the part people don't tell you sometimes you don't leave in anger, you leave in exhaustion. He asked me to stay, and I said, "I don't want to leave you. I want to leave who I become when I'm with you." He didn't understand. Maybe he still doesn't. It's been two years now. Tobi got married last December I saw the aso-ebi flooding my Instagram explore page, and I smiled, genuinely. He looked happy. I hope he is.

People ask if I'd take him back if he came asking today, if I'd choose Love over Leave. Looking back now, honestly I don't think I'd choose him again. Not because he was a bad man. He wasn't. But because loving him meant unbecoming myself, one small compromise at a time, until I woke up one morning and didn't recognize the woman making breakfast in my own kitchen.

I don't regret loving him. I regret how long it took me to leave. Some people you leave because they hurt you. I left Tobi because staying would have hurt me slowly, quietly, the kind of hurt that doesn't leave bruises, just leaves you smaller than you used to be. I chose Leave. And for the first time in three years, my bag is unpacked, and I'm still here.