Nobody asked you why.
They asked when. They asked who. They asked what is taking so long. Your mother asked. Your pastor asked. The aunty at the last wedding asked with that particular look that means she already has an opinion about your answer.
But in all of that, nobody sat you down and asked the most important question.
Why do you actually want to get married?
Not the answer you give in public. Not the spiritually correct response. The honest one. The one that lives underneath the rehearsed version.
Why This Question Matters
Your motivation for wanting a relationship or marriage is the foundation everything else is built on.
If the foundation is solid, the relationship has a real chance even when things get difficult. If the foundation is unstable, the relationship will feel the pressure of that instability in ways that are hard to diagnose because they started before the relationship even began.
Most Nigerian singles have never examined their motivation. They simply feel the desire for a relationship and begin pursuing one. But desire is not the same as readiness. And readiness is not the same as a healthy motivation.
You can be emotionally ready and still be motivated by something that will quietly damage any relationship you enter.
The Motivators That Work Against You
Some motivations for marriage are healthy. Genuine companionship. The desire to build something with someone who shares your values. The intention to create a stable home for children. These motivations are grounded in what you want to give and build, not just what you want to receive or escape.
But many Nigerian singles are pursuing marriage from motivations that have nothing to do with genuine desire for partnership.
Loneliness is one. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be alone. But a marriage entered primarily to solve loneliness places a weight on the relationship that it was not designed to carry. Your partner becomes responsible for filling a gap that existed before they arrived. And when the inevitable difficult seasons come and your partner cannot fill that gap perfectly, the loneliness returns and feels like evidence that you chose the wrong person.
Family pressure is another. The calls are getting more frequent. The comments at Christmas are less subtle. The sense that your singleness is becoming a source of concern, or worse, embarrassment, to the people you love creates an urgency that has nothing to do with genuine readiness or genuine desire. Marriages entered from this motivation tend to prioritise the wedding over the marriage. The goal is to relieve the pressure. Once the pressure is relieved, the relationship has to survive on whatever foundation it was actually built on.
Fear of missing out is a quieter one. Watching your friends marry, watching them have children, watching their lives move in a direction yours has not yet moved, creates a specific kind of anxiety that feels like desire but is actually comparison. You are not sure you want what they have. You are sure you do not want to be left behind.
The Motivator You Need to Watch Most Carefully
There is one motivation that is particularly common among Nigerian professionals and particularly difficult to recognise because it looks so reasonable.
The desire to complete the picture.
You have the career. You have the apartment. You have the car and the savings and the social life and the reputation. The one remaining piece of the life you envisioned is the partner. And so you begin looking for one the same way you approached everything else you have built. With a target, a timeline, and a strategy.
The problem is that a partner is not a life milestone. They are a person. And approaching partner selection primarily as the completion of a life plan produces a specific kind of partner choice where the person is chosen for how well they fit the picture rather than for who they actually are.
Five years into that marriage, when the picture is complete but the person beside you feels like a stranger, the motivation reveals its cost.
How to Find Your Honest Motivation
Sit with this question seriously. Not for five minutes but over several days.
If you knew that nobody in your life would ever ask about your relationship status again. If your family stopped caring. If your friends stopped getting married and there was no social comparison to make. If the biological clock concern was removed entirely.
Would you still want to get married? And if yes, why?
The answer that remains after all the external pressure is removed is your honest motivation. That is the foundation worth examining.
If the honest answer is that you genuinely want a partner to build with, to grow with, to know and be known by across decades, that is a healthy foundation.
If the honest answer is that you are not entirely sure what you want but the pressure has made the question feel urgent, that is important information. Not a reason to panic. A reason to slow down and do some work before the urgency drives a decision you have not fully chosen.
What to Do With This
Your motivation does not have to be perfect before you pursue a relationship. But it does have to be honest.
When you know why you actually want what you are looking for, you make better decisions about who you choose. You stop accepting relationships that relieve the pressure without actually meeting your needs. You stop mistaking urgency for readiness. You start choosing from a place that has examined itself rather than a place that is simply responding to external noise.
The most important relationship question you will ever answer is not when or who.
It is why.
Learn more about the self-knowledge that changes your partner selection at jojeanimohita.com.
You do not have a love problem. You have a clarity problem. And clarity is something you can actually work on.
About the Author
Jo-Jean Imoh-Ita is a Certified Relationship and Marriage Coach and Relationship Clarity Strategist. She is the founder of Soothing Solutions Ltd and RFC Academy, and has coached over 150 clients across Nigeria and the diaspora. Her work helps career-driven Nigerian singles choose partners with clarity, not just feelings. Learn more at jojeanimohita.com
