Hello Tiny Buddha community,

I’m dealing with a relationship problem that has been causing me an array of emotions–sadness, frustration, anger, disappointment, etc.

I met someone about 2-3 years ago at work, and I very much developed a crush on him, however he was currently in a 4-5 year relationship with someone. During that time, him and I formed a friendship which was strictly work-related and nothing more. Eventually she cheated on him, and during that time I was already back up at school so I was not around to comfort him or make him feel better. When I came back home from school about 3 or 4 months after the incident, him and I finally started to hit things off. We took things incredibly slow in the beginning and didn’t rush anything since he just got out of a relationship. Eventually we started seriously dating August of 2015 and have dated for 9 months until May, when I broke up with him.

Now let me just say that he did very many things for me without having to ask. He was a gentleman; always paid for my dinners and drinks, bought me flowers for no reason, bought me an amazing watch for my birthday, things that made me feel good. But there was also things that I did not like. Sometimes we would stay out till 5 in the morning hanging out with his friends after the bars, drinking excessively and I would ask for us to go home because I would get tired and he would get upset. I’ve mentioned it to him a few times that that bothered me. He also would constantly make remarks that suggested jealousy issues, even though he insisted that he found jealousy an ugly trait in relationships. He would constantly ask if I would ever cheat on him and bring up my ex a lot. Now, I understand his reasons for doing this because of what happened to him with his ex. But I felt the remarks were kind of taking a toll on our relationship because they would end up in fights. Him & I fought both on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and partially New Years Eve. Those fights have been hurting me for quite some time because of the names that were being thrown around and whatnot, and I mentioned it during the break up. He thought it was ridiculous that I haven’t moved on from them because they were the past. I believe he has a drinking problem and an anger problem (he’s never physically hurt me but has been what I believe verbally abusive). He doesn’t have patience for many things which concerns me if we were to ever get married in the future because I need a man who will be patient. He fights with his parents a lot and you can tell there is a lack of respect. I mention all of these things because they are the very things that have been bothering me.

But he has a good heart, and is incredibly loyal to the people he loves and cares about. He will go above and beyond to make people happy. Which is what I love about him. He’s also incredibly smart and is the type of person who knows a lot of things about random stuff, which I find cute and attractive. The day after I broke up with him we agreed to go on a break instead and think about things. I have thought about it and realize that relationships take work and that I didn’t give him a chance to fix or work on things, so I told him that I would like to get back with him and really work on things.

Now here’s the twist–now HE’S the one who is unsure about whether he wants to get back with me or not because he does not know whether he can trust me and that I won’t break up with him again. His father and friends think he shouldn’t get back with me (although he said that ultimately he will make his own decision). He also mentioned that part of him thinks that being single would also be a good thing for him, but he is unsure because he still loves and cares about me. I can tell he does because he still goes out of his way to text me and hang out, casually of course. He said that he wants to see each other casually and if that’ll help him make up his mind about what he wants.

The thing that really bothers me about all of this now though is that it’s like he turned this all around and now is making it look like I NEED TO WORK ON THINGS IN ORDER TO MAKE THIS RELATIONSHIP WORK. I gave him the upper hand so now he’s taking advantage of it and when we’re hanging out at the bar and I’m tired and want to go home, he’ll say “You said you would be more understanding, right?” It’s almost like he completely overlooked everything that bothered me. He has even already said he “didn’t do anything wrong”. Which really irks me and upsets me. He’s already mentioned to me the female attention he’s been getting (which I know he’s doing to get me jealous–but it seems childish and immature to me) and sometimes I wonder if getting back with him to work on things will even be worth it because of how he’s been acting now.

I just really need guidance on what to do. Because I still love him and think that relationships take work and I realize I hurt him by abandoning him, so I want to make things right. But I want to make sure he’s actually going to change because I can’t get into a relationship with him again only to find out the things he has done in the past are still prevalent and will still hurt me and then break up with him again. HELP PLEASE!