“DESPERATION can make a person do surprising things,” so says author Veronica Roth. And it’s true. Often, when we’re caught in the throes of this emotion, we have no control over how we act. Desperation when it comes to love is even more encumbering — when your heart is in love and your soul is drowning in it, as the African proverb says, there’s absolutely nothing you can do about how you act.

What’s the most desperate thing you’ve done for someone in the name of love? We put this question to a few women, and this is what they said.

Alyshia, 27:

He was living with his woman and I was a single mother struggling, but he had a sweet mouth. He told me that he was just with her because they were together from high school and he felt obligated, but as soon as he got his taxi business off the ground he would leave and move in with me and my sons. He had a vision of a rideshare company with a few cars, and he already had one and wanted another. He convinced me to take out a personal loan with a loan company (neither of us could get a loan from the bank), and even though my mother warned me, I did it because I was in love. I took out a loan for $1.5 million for him to buy a Probox, and by the time the first payment was due he disappeared. Hombre moved from where he was living with his girl, and to this day, I can’t find him or the car. That was three years ago, and I’m still paying back the loan.

Sadie-Ann, 40:

I have many stories but this one I think is the worst. I was in love with this guy whose apartment I used to stay at when I visited the US. He was just a friend, but I liked him anyway, so whenever there would be a sale on flights, I would book one and go up. On one trip he hinted that he liked me, and as soon as I came back home I booked another flight for a few weeks after. I was laser-focused on him. Well, my sister died, and instead of cancelling the flight I went anyway because not even mourning would get in the way of love. While there I shopped for a dress for the funeral and didn’t tell him about the death until I returned home. I think that kinda turned him off because he asked how come I didn’t say anything, and was able to act normal the entire week I was there. Truth be told, I’d been rejected by men so many times that I was desperately grabbing on to this one and couldn’t think about anything else. He moved out of state shortly after and we lost touch because it was too far to travel after that. So all that was in vain.

Tisha, 30:

I was living with my daughter, she was about two at the time, and the man I was talking to at the time was visiting Jamaica. Picture this, we were living in a large studio apartment and my daughter’s bunk bed was in my room area. The guy wanted to stay over and my daughter didn’t want to go to sleep. I could see that he was getting annoyed so I gave her a quarter of my melatonin gummy and when she fell asleep, I put her to sleep on the couch, with some pillows by her side. The guy and I went to bed, but about 3:00 am my daughter started screaming as she had fallen off the couch and it was dark. The guy started cursing as he had a flight later that morning, and I felt so bad. I spent the rest of the time with my daughter sleeping on the couch, but I felt so guilty because I really shouldn’t have exposed her to all of that. But he was the one who was supporting us at the time, and I couldn’t do better.

Marsha, 38:

He was breaking up with me and I told him I wasn’t going to stand for that, so I went to the police station and told them that he had hit me and asked them to come and talk to him. I really just wanted some counselling from them and for them to point out to him what he was losing, but he almost caught a charge because of me, and I had to apologise to him and the officers.