Should I F(26) continue to try and save my relationship of 1.5yr with my ex M(30)

​

Me and my ex were dating for about 1.5 years, we quickly moved in together after about just a couple of months of dating. I wasn’t sure about moving in, because we had been dating for about just over 4 months, but because he needed to move the subject was presented. We were drinking wine and I agreed when he mentioned that maybe we should move in together. Later I put more thought and felt unsure that that was the right thing, but also because I waited till the last minute to change my mind. I ended up moving in with him anyways. When I told him why I didn’t feel comfortable he mentioned that I should just go ahead and do it anyways because I should follow through with my word, and now he might be homeless because of me. He wasn’t wrong. We did get into an argument, and told him I needed to take a break. I was gone for about 6 weeks, we still stayed in touch, he apologized and eventually we got back together. He found a place and we moved in together.

He was a great boyfriend for the most part, but I felt suffocated a lot of the times. I was a student and he didn’t have a job, so our free time varied a lot. He had a lot of it, I had very little free time. He liked to spend most of his time with me, but I felt overwhelmed with personal family issues and school, etc so I thought that things would also get easier once we were living together.

My family didn’t like him very much, so I eventually distanced myself from them more and more. I don’t have many friends to begin with, but often times when I wanted to spend time with them, I would come home and we would argue over some thing. So it made me anxious. I

He was at the same time very attentive to my needs, but would completely shutdown and not communicate when there were issues. He would stone wall me and wouldn’t open up.

Eventually our arguments grew stronger and we would argue for hours on end (3+ hours) at least 3 times a week. I felt that my efforts were not appreciated. I did the majority of the cooking, I cleaned a lot. He cleaned a lot too, but I also was a full-time student while he didn’t have a job. I like cleaning so it wasn’t a problem, but because I had more limited time, often times he would end up doing more house chores than me. I did all of the laundry, took care of his child, paid most of the times for half the rent, etc. Long story short, I felt like I wasn’t good enough and he would often question if I even loved him. He was very verbally open about his feelings, I on the other hand had a hard time expressing them, because when I would, it felt to me like it was a “test”. So if I said something wrong, it would validate his thoughts. I do struggle with anxiety so a lot of it could have been in my head but regardless, I felt like I completely lost myself in this relationship and no matter how much I tried, I felt like it wasn’t enough. So I broke up with him.

I felt very suffocated and this led for me to find safety elsewhere. I had stayed in touch with a previous ex (5yr dating) as friends. I decided to meet up with him to return old belongings and we kissed, we met up again and things did happen (no sex thought) but this was while I was still dating him. So I did cheat (i know, horrible).

About a week passed, and I came back. I saw changes and encouraged him to get a job. He did. Then I began to wake up super early in the morning to pack him lunch, to also clean the house and at the same time continue with my school work. I never told my ex about what had happened and he eventually found out about the kiss. I didn’t tell him the other stuff that happened and I know that was wrong, I didn’t think he would believe me and I also didn’t want to hurt him. I was really dumb to do that. However, he was understanding of it and while he was hurt he eventually forgave me for it.

The arguments didn’t really stop and I made the decision to leave for good. I was fine initially when I broke up with him, but I still stayed in touch. So time passed and we were trying to work on possibly getting back together. I was hopeful. But then I started to notice some things.

I learned that he had already began to move on (had sex with women) while we were broken up. That was his right and I didn’t think much of it. But it did hurt. I didn’t say anything though.

I would go over to his place to help him with cleaning, doing laundry, hooking up, and were trying to see if we could actually try to work on this relationship together. While I was cleaning, I found a used tampon in the trash can, and many other things. Given the fact that I had cheated, I offered my location so he could trust me and that’s when he decided to have a girl over. I confronted him about it, apologized but after all said to me that “I had broken up with him” so I shouldn’t be mad. He also was the one at the time hesitant to get back together. Eventually, I came clean with what I had done, because he kind of knew anyways.

That’s when he became really cold and cruel to me. I apologized many times, I continued to do things for him and was trying to help him. Then I noticed more and more signs of him seeing women. One of the nights that I went over. We were doing things and he stopped. Because he “couldnt look at me”. He showed me something in his phone and a Tinder notification popped up. That’s when he said to me that he was seeing many women, and I look at the mirror and I see “boob marks” on it. I left I was shocked and hurt. He claims that he came clean with it, but I disagree because he never actually announced that he would do that. Now I don’t know that he stopped seeing women at all.

I went a little crazy and would blow up his phone, because he would invite me over to clean and hook up and then I didn’t hear from him, because “he needed space”. One time he blocked me right after I left his home. Only to unblock me and be upset at me for yelling at him. However, I did go a little crazy and would call him many times. So I do understand why he blocked me at that time.

He said to me that I should feel bad for the other women, not jealous because he is mean and shitty to them. He also said that I am partly to blame for this behavior because the way that he is acting now is because he is hurt. He has told me that “If he finds out that I’ve talked to any guy no matter how small the interaction is, that he will not get back together with me, but that I am also causing a harm to women because he will be shitty to them for the rest of his life,etc”. I know many of these things that he is saying are messed up, but I did notice like a switch, so I know that he is acting out because he is hurt.

He says he wants me to “accept him” now. which includes him seeing other women, because it’s “helping him cope” with the betrayal. I agreed. He showed me he is awful with these women and that I should feel sorry for them. At the same time, he told me that if I block him, that he will never talk to me again. Does not want me to see other men. He still has my location. I deleted my instagram because it made him feel insecure and now he doesn’t want me to reach out to him because he gets triggered when I call. He will randomly text me and call me, and we essentially talk about what he wants. He said he was really stressed out with me, and that he can’t help me with my feelings of insecurity because he doesn’t have the capability. So when I’ve expressed to him my feelings, he shuts down and avoids me.

He has asked me for money twice, at this point he owes me 1k. I’ve offered to help him cover for therapy. I’ve done everything that I can to help him with better coping because I do see he is struggling. I still love him and this hurts really bad. He still says that he wants to see if things will work out, but wants me to act as though we are just casually dating, because he feels controlled.

But it’s getting to a point where my mental health is rapidly deteriorating. I should also mention that he lives right in front of me. So I have began to isolate in my bedroom with the curtains closed because I am afraid I’m going to see him again with other women.

I’ve recently tried to end multiple times, that he should just take the therapy and we should be friends. But he won’t accept it. I asked him to stop with the women, he said he won’t because he is trying to take responsibility for me cheating, and he thinks that I cheated because “he was too nice to me” when he found out about the affair the first time around. He says that I dont understand him, and that this is part of him “being a strong man”, having conviction because he is changing his behavior and following through with what he said. And he believes that if we could actually get back together “it would have to be this way” because he feels that I will cheat again if he “surrenders to my demands” because again, he says I control him with negative emotions.

I also said, that then I would like to have more freedom and I get to move on and do as I please and that he takes the therapy and if we both want to try again then it would be a mutual choice.

I will say I wasn’t the best girlfriend, I did lie to him, I did gaslight him I guess. But it was to avoid me hurting him (its so dumb, im not excusing it). Now he knows this hurts me really bad. I am on anti anxiety meds. I’ve lost about 20+ lbs. I am severely depressed. My grades are affected by this. It really is consuming my entire life.

I don’t know what to do, because I still have feelings for him. I know he isn’t good for my mental health, but its also hard because he won’t accept me telling him that I no longer want to be in this situation.

What he offered as a solution is that he will take the therapy and that he will do a better job at communicating to me that he hasn’t been with women. But again, he does this whenever he calls, because Im not allowed to call. So I just sit and wait for him maybe to call and he just mentions (oh I stayed home yesterday and im going home today) but my anxiety comes from the fact that he can do it and im not comfortable with it. So I stopped seeing him.

There’s been multiple times where I’ve told him that I couldn’t do this and he blames me for him being like this. He says things like “You made me like this”, “You don’t understand what it’s like to be able to love one day and to not be able to the next day”. He takes no accountability for the issues we had in the relationship, but I don’t want to just give up because I still have hope.

I’m going crazy.

So my question here is:

Does anyone here think that I am just wasting my time and should give up? or perhaps, does anyone have any resources as to how to help an ex with coping with feelings after an affair? Is this normal behavior on his end?