• Shalonda Trent met her husband online and married him in Nigeria a week after meeting him in person. • Her family warned her off him. They were horrified when she moved 6,000 miles away to Kazakhstan. • Trent, 34, who recently returned to the US with her spouse and kids, is glad she proved them wrong.

My husband, Precious Ubaka Spik, and I often laugh that the very people who were the most opposed to our unconventional, whirlwind romance have become our greatest supporters.

Nearly every member of my American family and community was shocked in 2021 when I started direct messaging Precious, a complete stranger, on Facebook that May. I became engaged in July, met him in Dubai for the first time in November, and got married a week later in his native country, Nigeria.

They were skept

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