I met my current boyfriend in 2017 after moving to a new place. In January 2018 we spontaneously booked a trip together (as friends) for April 2018 prior to the trip we started to hang out and hook up which made things sort of complicated. We were not official and both seeing other people etc. however I wanted things to be more serious than they were however never expressed that to him. When we returned from the trip, he went completely MIA for about 5 days… later to tell me that his dad was really ill and that he had to fly home. Once he connected with me again it was like he changed and wanted to be with me more often which i liked.

Fast forward two months of regularly seeing each other and spending weekends together i learned that he lied to me earlier and that he sadly impregnated a girl and they decided to have an abortion and that after the abortion they both stopped talking due to the stress etc of the situation.  I was kind about it and felt for the woman and wanted to make sure he dealt with it correctly as i would assume it was something tough to go through.  He reassured me that he did. that they didnt speak any longer and we continued to hang out/hook up.

In August, i learned that i fell pregnant with him and was devastated. The thought of telling him scared me but i did it and we also decided to have an abortion as we are not in the time/place where we are ready.

After the abortion i felt more connected to him because of the experience and he told me if the situation was different and we were more serious and together for longer that he would have wanted to keep the baby. He was (is?) heavily into drugs and I have barely experimented with them through my life.

In September he shared with me that the woman from before had reached out to him and asked if he was dating in which he said yes to and showed me the messages.  Throughout the next 2 months we spent 5/6 out of  7 nights together typically a week and it seemed it was almost every monday that he was busy. He also started using drugs more heavily, booked a boys trip and behaving differently. He would always reassure me that we were going to go to the “next level” he cared about me alot, never spent that much time with someone, he was almost there to be official, introduced me to all of his friends, talked about me to his family, gave me a key to his house, we looked after each other dogs, we had a little ‘pack’.

In Sept/Oct i had been finding weird things and my intuition started kicking in… another womans hair in his bed and other signs that he was being unfaithful to me (we were yet to be official). If he would have been up front about everything and said he was seeing other people rather than lie to my face continuously we wouldnt be in the mess that we are today.

At the end of october i caught him red handed with another woman at his house which he then tried to lie his way out of and didnt originally realize how much i knew.  I was angry, upset, felt stupid, felt embarrassed, felt duped.  All of my gut feelings had been right, why was i so stupid for believing him. How could he do this to me…  We ended things…but he was devastated..  He knew the connection he had and this other woman was just around for sex/drugs/partying that 1 or maybe 2 days a week she could get with him.

The hardest part is that he openly chose to lie to my face continuously about it when i openly asked him about things and that he was the most open with her (she knew all about me).  He told me that he loved me and how sorry he was and that he regretted everything. I was feeling sad about the situation and knowing/thinking that we had a stronger connection than that and that even though we were never officially dating i would never disrespect someone, lie, betray and toy with someones emotions like that… how could he.

In December i agreed to seeing him. We talked and talked and he made me believe that he wanted to change and he finally had a person in front of him who he wanted to change for.  he came clean about alot of the things that happened and we took things day by day and re learning each other and in January 2019 he asked me to be his girlfriend i agreed.

In February i went away for the weekend and we were in a great place, i was a little concerned about his behavior however i decided to be in a relationship with him so i needed to trust him.  He told me via text message that he had run into the other woman and that she was now sleeping with one of his friends (we live in a small city). I was furious and wanted to end things… i went away for one weekend and “he runs into her”. He calmed me down, because thats what he does and why i originally fell for him and we carried on through our relationship.  We decided to move in together in April. Since then Ive found texts with his bestfriend stating that he deletes texts before he come home and what actually happened in February is that  he went to the bar where she bartends!

furious but now living together (also turns out that the other woman literally lived across the street from our new place) he promised they only had a conversation and he told her that we were officially together now and that he cant see her any more. He asked her not to come to her bar etc.

From April until now we have had a very rollercoaster/toxic relationship.  We ended up moving again this past september because i hated seeing her house all the time. He said he has changed completely and the man he is today would never do the things he has in the past and hes so upset that he did that to someone he cares about so much. He talks about marrying me and that he found his person.  I do see really big changes in him, he is no longer using drugs, he doesnt party like he use to and seems content with our ‘new’ life together… However now i feel like i am the one who is holding back, not trusting, causing the toxic fights between us because i am unable to ‘let it go’ I see so much progress from him but i also remember and know what he is capable of. I beleive in him and that he can be who he wants to be but how can somone love you and lie straight to your face over and over.

We are both trying to fix things, ive seen a therapist because he feels like my behavior is bipolar because i have triggers that make me blow up on him randomly. I have flashbacks of things he says now and means them (i think/hope) bu he use to say to me a year ago. We both are fighting for our relationship but im starting to wonder whats the point now..

Just looking for outside perspective… Do i have a lost cause on my hands or can people really change to be significantly better person than they were?

Thanks

T