For the last 2 and a half years I have been in and out of a relationship which I could only describe as an emotional roller-coaster. As you are reading you may notice there are a lot of ‘red flags’ in the relationship but please read until the end even if it’s very long.

So when I was 20 year old I met this 34 year old man by chance. He wasn’t handsome or rich, he was just very charming and good with his choice of words. Fast forward six months, after having rejected him once before, I agreed to dating him. Everything was really great in the beginning, as it always is. We even moved in together and lived in an apartment. And then it was about 4 months into the relationship when I did something I know I shouldn’t have done ordinarily; peek at his cellphone texts. What I saw really shook me, since I found out he had a WIFE.. and CHILDREN. The contents of the text messages from his wife was cold, but his responses reassure her – things like ‘Love you forever’ and stuff like that, even though he has lived with me for 2 months, and haven’t returned to his house… not even once!

As I dug further it was more shocking because it turned out he had not only one but TWO wives, granted the first one he has been separated from for 5 YEARS to be with the second. Apparently, he only sends financial support for his two children from the first wife, and very rarely meet them as his second wife disapproves. Furthermore, his marriage with his second wife was unofficial (I must first say that I live in Southeast Asia where these things are common to folks from the countryside).

Right then I KNEW I had to end it with him and I confronted him about it, but here’s the thing about him, he’s very very good at words that even though I KNOW he is lying, even though I have the PROOF that he is lying, he will be able to make me doubt myself or make me question, ‘does it really matter though?’ When I confronted him, he didn’t seem the least bit guilty as if he meant for me to find out anyway. His reaction was something like ‘well now you know’ and as I was crying he was TEXTING his boss. Then he told me how his first wife abused his money, how his second wife slapped him in front of his family – he redirected my anger to sympathy. He makes it as if HE was the victim in all of this.

Anyway I decided to call it quits anyway and after a lot of crying (since I really, genuinely had feelings for him) I did leave the apartment but not a week after he showed up at my house to apologize, showing (maybe acting, I don’t know, he was convincing) remorse and saying he was in the middle of legal divorce from the first one and separating from the second one. And stupidly, I let him convince me into agreeing. Half a year later, he really did finalize his legal divorce which apparently was already in process even before he met me, and it was only a year later that he stopped all contact with his second wife, and only financially support his kids through their grandma (his mother).

Up to now (2 years later) there have been many, MANY times where we would break up over things like him lying and every time he would say he is different and he would change, and even last Saturday we just met up for a date (we don’t live together). And every time I’m going to meet him I curse myself for being weak, but the thing that always gets me once I met him is that in person, one on one, if one could forget about all the things he has done (and maybe is still doing) he could be candidate for the best boyfriend. Every time he lies to me and I find out, or everytime he makes it hard for me to contact him, I feel like my feelings for him get less and less, and since we meet very rarely now (about once every two weeks) I am cold to his approaches via text, but I’m just afraid that he would show up on my doorstep again and the cycle would repeat… for what seems to be the 100th time.

And I know by this logic I should already just up and leave him, but he makes me feel sorry for him. It’s like I know somewhere in his twisted mind there is a soul there, and he puts a mature front but I know in his head he is a child. I’ve tried everything from deleting him off my cell phone before, changing my number etc but the cycle finds its way. And I also know that I am also at fault for enabling him to do this and I am not regretting my 2 and a half years, I just really want this to be over but I can’t.