Ex doesn’t think us being incompatible is a good enough reason to break up

I (25f) broke up with my ex (24m) this past weekend after 3ish years, but he is pushing to stay together.

Here is a little background, me and my ex met freshman year of college. I liked him and he flirted back but he was dating another girl on and off when we met, so we became good friends. At the end of freshman year, they broke up and we hooked up – I thought we were going to start dating but he told me he wanted to try to get his ex gf back. I didn’t talk to him for a year and half after that, until we reconnected our junior year. Him and his ex had been apart for about a year at that point and we started dating. A year and a half later, our relationship had been a little rocky. We both have anxious personalities and would get in fights because neither of us knew how to effectively communicate. He would get mad at a lot of things and just shut down and wouldn’t talk to me about it and I wouldn’t be able to cope until I forced it out of him, which usually was in the form of a fight.

When college ended, he moved home (4 hours) and I stayed in our college city for work. That was when I found out he had cheated on me a couple months before graduation and had been on Tinder for months during our relationship. He was going through a depressive episode because of life events and that was his explanation for the infidelity. But I broke up with him anyway. We were apart for 4 months with him attempting multiple times to mend the relationship. I ended up reaching out to him and I decided I truly loved him and wanted to forgive him and try to make it work.

I moved to his home town about 9 months ago and got a really good job I love. During this time, we have almost broken up three times. They have all been spurred by fights that turn into screaming matches. He has broken things, thrown things around both of our apartments, pushed me, accused me of cheating on him with my boss, and stuff of that nature. I wanted to end things but each time, we decided to work it out and try and be better.

I am currently in therapy, and he began therapy while we were separated but stopped. When we get in bad fights I ask if he can start going back to therapy and he says he will, but hasn’t actually gone because he is “so busy with work” and he feels like he doesn’t really need it.

I will say that our communication has gotten better, and I have gotten better at ignoring his outbursts that aren’t directed towards me. But when we do get in fights, they have become even more bitter and degrading to one another and I have felt myself being more harsh and critical.

Reasons I feel we aren’t compatible (skip ahead if you don’t care)

1. He is a hot head and sometimes I can get confrontation and push things. So I push his buttons.

2. Planning things with him is hard because he works 6 days a week. But we can’t even have a conversations about planning things without him getting upset or saying we’ll talk about it later until it is too late. I get so much anxiety thinking about having to plan something with him.

3. I find myself disagreeing with a lot of fundamental values, opinions, and overall philosophies he has, and resenting him for it.

4. He also can sometimes be rude and say narcissistic things that I feel come from a place of insecurity. Like, “I’m smarter than all of them” when referring to advice my parents and his parents gave us on buying vs renting a place.

5. He is often pessimistic and thinks the worst of everyone and situations while I try to be positive.

6. I am a very independent person, and he can get really protective over me and jealous. We got in a fight because I took the train to work with two of my coworkers, one of whom is a guy. He thinks the train is “dangerous” and he didn’t like that I was with a guy coworker. It makes me really anxious to hangout with my friends or even go to work outing s because I’m afraid he is going to be mad.

Anyways…

We have been planning to move in together since I moved to his home town, and last week we signed the lease for our dream apartment (but haven’t paid anything yet). This past weekend, we got into a bad fight over something stupid and I told him I wanted to end our relationship. He agreed in the moment but now has been trying to convince me to work things out. He says that he thinks moving in will make things better, and I think it will make things worse. He says I am just scared to move in and me breaking things off was abrupt, but I feel we probably should have broken up a long time ago and moving in together is just a disaster waiting to happen. I do feel bad about doing this after we signed the lease, but I am fully prepared to pay or endure whatever consequences may result.

I really do love and care about him so much, but I feel like we are ultimately not compatible and we are pushing off the inevitable, therefore it is not smart to start living together and we should both just move on. Am I giving up on this relationship too soon?

Tl;dr: I broke up with my boyfriend because I think we’re fundamentally different but he won’t accept it and I’m starting to doubt that my reasons are valid.