So right now I’m going back and forward with what I want to do with my ex. So to start from the beginning, we met around 2 years ago in college (still in college). A lot has happened so I am going to condense it as much as possible. He approached me with the desire of having a romantic relationship, and although I felt I wasn’t ready I decided to try going out with him anyways and figured it wouldn’t hurt. I was scared however, because I was going to study abroad in Japan and had decided to not get into a romantic relationship. We started out in a friends with benefits relationship and then started going out as boyfriend and girlfriend. I figured however that going out with my boyfriend was worth a shot, especially since he expressed interest in wanting to try. We did long distance while I went to Japan New York for a month and then Japan for 6 months, and then he came to study abroad at the same university I was at for 6 more months, so we lived together. Looking back, I see that we went through a lot of different relationship styles which might have contributed to the strain we had. We talked all the time and I was infatuated with him. Then he came over and I felt like my world had shifted, and I didn’t like how I felt like my private space had been invaded, and I was abusive to him the entire time we were in Japan. I would talk down to him and make him feel bad on purpose, whenever he would snore I would kick him with the intent of hurting him so he would stop snoring and I could sleep.

At some point I realized how abusive I was being and felt like a horrible person for being capable of treating a human being this way. I also told him multiple times I wanted to break up, something that he has expressed hurt him very much and lowered his self esteem. When we got back to America, I decided to break up with him because I felt suffocated. He wanted to continue having a sexual relationship however, and I agreed because I saw no reason not to. So we’ve been having a friends with benefits relationship for a year, and throughout it I had sex with other guys unprotected and was scared of his reaction so I didn’t tell him, but he found out anyways and now says he can’t trust me at all. He also had a short term relationship, during which we had sex while he was with the girl. Fast forward to now, neither of us trust each other, he wants access to my phone to see if I’m really not with anyone else sexually, since I lied to him beforehand (one of the times he begged me to see if I was telling the truth and I lied because I couldn’t bear the thought of his disgust/disappointment in me)

But we are still sexually attracted to each other. He feels since we are both single we should be able to have sex and tell each other if other partners come about. At the same time (I’m pretty sure I enabled this to a certain extent) I feel that if I were to start another relationship I’d be scared of his reaction.

I don’t know what I’m doing with this relationship to be honest. On the one hand, I want to believe that any relationship can be fixed and if I just find a way to make myself a better person and he works on being a better person we can at least have a good friendship, and when we’re together and having a good time I can see the possibility. But when he says stuff that goes against my values or makes me angry I ask myself how I could ever think I could be with him for the rest of my life. The fact that I go from one extreme emotion to the other makes me feel like I’m mentally/emotionally unstable, and I get paranoid that all the bad  happenings in this relationship was actually enabled by me. Sometimes I feel that in the long run there is a possibility that I will allow myself to be guilted into being with only him, but I don’t know how much of that thought is irrational and how much is rational. He has admitted to me he is manipulative, but he told me he wouldn’t try to manipulate his romantic partner (this was while we were together). However, certain behaviors (he tried cheating on me while we were together in Japan and has said if he feels pushed he might cheat).

I just feel so lost because I thought I was a better person than this. I know people make mistakes and I can’ expect myself to be good all the time or have positive thoughts all the time but sometimes I just see the horrible situations I’ve created and feel bad for even thinking of myself because I feel I’m just adding to my narcissism. This relationship has made me realize how horrible I treat myself and how horrible I treated him as a human being.

My issue is the more I introspect and reflect on my behaviors, the more I see how toxic of a person I really am, which is why I’m not sure if I should continue to have hope for this relationship or not. I have recently realized that for a while I have lacked self respect and self trust, which is how my boyfriend met me, and I’m not sure if part of that is what subconsciously attracted him to me and visa-versa (we’ve both disrespected each other on different levels in different ways). Because of this, I’m not sure if my view of him as a person is skewed, because I have always had a negative mindset. However, a lot of times I felt like I couldn’t breathe and sometimes the feeling still comes up. On the other hand, I do feel that spiritually I am in a better place than I was when I met him and if it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have realized how self-destructive I was being to my body, mind, and spirit. I want to continue growing spiritually, but sometimes after interacting with him I go out and interact with other people, and I feel like I don’t know what

When I voice my insecurities to him I feel like the conversation somehow always goes back to how I hurt him and how I need to be transparent so he can trust me again. When we get into these conversations it makes so much sense, but when I’m by myself and hear myself think I feel like I’ve just been manipulated. But I’m so paranoid of his intentions towards me I’m not sure if he’s actually manipulated the situation or not (consciously or subconsciously). And when I’m away from him and think about our relationship as a whole I want to take time away from him, but when we’re together (mainly in a sexual way) I feel like we still have a chance to have a good relationship.

I feel I need an outsider’s opinion on this. I don’t know what to do, and I’m tired to be honest, but I don’t know if it’s too soon to stop fighting or not. He’s a good person, which is why I still want him in my life but  don’t want to hurt him anymore, and I don’t want to lose a person who has seen me go from having no self confidence to achieving self confidence.