My boyfriend and I have been together for 3 years and are both pursuing our doctorate degrees in different cities. Out of the blue he tells me that he doesn’t feel the same way, only a part of him wants to try to work on our relationship, and that he was overwhelmed with chemistry work. After a couple weeks my anxiety was through the roof over all of this so I decided to break up with him because my school work was suffering and I wouldn’t let myself fail out of school for a boy. A month passes with no contact. He contacts me and we meet up. He tells me how he didn’t know how to prioritize his life before, that he was so incredibly depressed and felt inadequate in his program but didn’t know how to articulate that to me, he was just maneuvering on auto-pilot because he didn’t know how to feel anymore from all of the pressure with school.

He told me he fooled around and slept with one of his new coworkers that asked him to go on a couple dates. He doesn’t have any friends in his program and told me that hanging out with her was a distraction from the pain of reality, because feeling empty felt better than feeling all the pain. He said she never meant anything, he never had feelings for her and he drank and smoked every single day we weren’t together.

I lost my virginity to him and I am so upset about everything. I don’t understand how someone could bury themselves like that, it is totally not in his character to act like this. He hates himself and regrets every moment with her. Eventually he stopped drinking and realized how much our relationship meant to him and how he made a terrible mistake.

Should I give him another chance?