The emotional lives of teaching at the universities have remained under research. This study used a qualitative approach to investigate the emotional lives of lecturers teaching at two selected universities. This study sought to identify, understand and interpret the emotional lives of teaching with interpretive phenomenology research design. In purposefully selected two universities, 12 lecturers participated in the study. Semi-structured individual interviews were employed, the data generated were interpreted, the emerged themes were: work condition, resources and accreditation panel, trade union and government disagreement, and experienced emotions and effects on participants. A further interpretation of the emerged themes revealed that the emotional lives of the participants are dependent on teaching resources, academic war and convenient behaviour. The dependence is thereby suggestive that change in the management of teaching resources, academic war and behaviour of lecturers could positively influence the nature of their emotional lives. The paper used two universities, which lays the foundation for subsequent studies because this is the first study to examine the emotional lives of teaching in Nigerian universities. The study made recommendations for further studies and drew implications for policy and practice.