By Gloria Drealomalicha
There is something heartbreakingly lonely about sleeping beside someone you once prayed to have… and still feeling miles apart from them.
Friday nights are usually the hardest.
That is the moment the noise finally fades. The children are asleep. The television volume is low. The streetlights outside are dim. And two people who once could not keep their hands off each other now lie on the same bed like polite strangers renting the same apartment.
No laughter. No teasing. No deep conversations. No lingering touch.
Just silence.
Many relationships are dying quietly like this every single day. Not because there is no love left, but because life slowly buried the romance under pressure, pride, routine, and emotional exhaustion.
That is why some women now move from one prayer house to another searching for spiritual answers to emotional problems. Some spend outrageous amounts on prophets, charms, midnight prayers, and “man-tie” rituals because they are terrified of losing the man they once believed would love them forever.
But maybe the real tragedy is not that love disappeared. Maybe the tragedy is that many couples stopped watering it.
Because love real love is not maintained by fear, manipulation, or spiritual control. It survives through attention, tenderness, effort, forgiveness, attraction, friendship, and those little moments people now call “ordinary.
Do you remember when he first met you?
The excitement in his voice whenever your phone rang. The way he stared at you when you weren’t looking. The way both of you could talk till 2 a.m. and still miss each other five minutes later. The innocent jealousy. The random gifts. The stolen kisses. The playful fights. The hunger.
Back then, you were not just his woman. You were his peace. His escape from the madness of life. The soft place he ran to when the world became too hard.
Somewhere along the line, many couples lost that version of themselves.
Now conversations sound like business meetings. Affection has become scheduled. Compliments disappeared. Everyone is too tired to flirt. Too angry to apologise. Too distracted to notice the loneliness sitting beside them in bed.
And sometimes, a man does not drift because another woman is more beautiful. Sometimes he drifts because another woman made him feel seen again.
That is the part many people avoid discussing honestly.
There is something deeply powerful about a woman who still knows how to love her man intentionally. A woman who understands that romance is not only for the early stages of a relationship. A woman who still touches his beard while talking to him. Who still sends sweet messages randomly. Who still laughs at his dry jokes. Who still dresses beautifully for him sometimes, even if they are not going anywhere.
Men act strong, but many are emotionally starving in silence.
And intimacy? Ah… intimacy is more than what happens under the sheets. It is in the tension before the touch. The lingering eye contact across the room. The playful whisper while serving dinner. The soft perfume after a late-night shower. The way she climbs into bed and rests her head gently on his chest while he exhales the weight of the world.
Imagine a man returning home after fighting Lagos traffic, office stress, financial pressure, and the daily brutality of survival… only to open his door and meet warmth instead of war.
A clean room. Soft music. A beautiful smile. A woman who still looks at him with desire instead of irritation.
Trust me, many men would abandon every distraction outside if home still felt like that.
Not every relationship problem needs deliverance. Not every cold marriage is caused by village people. Sometimes, two people simply stopped making each other feel special.
And the painful truth is this: People rarely run away from where they feel deeply loved, respected, desired, and emotionally safe.
Maybe tonight, instead of another midnight prayer about your relationship, hold your partner a little closer. Talk again. Laugh again. Touch again. Flirt again. Fall in love with each other again.
Because sometimes the real magic people are searching for outside… is already waiting quietly beside them in bed.
Gloria Drealomalicha is the editor of Starnews NG
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