[TH Anonymous]

[SIZE="a"]We had two arguments following my post (he does't know about it, though, I just tried to figure out what we should do regarding this situation).

The first argument was about his girlfriend who cheated on him with her ex more than one year ago. He found out she had cheated on him by going through her messages and when he found out, he sent me a text message (it was when we weren't really friends, I had given him my phone number if he ever needed it since we met on a website and essentially spoke with each other on it). The fact that he discovered this is the main reason why we got closer. At the time, he didn't tell me the reason of his suffering, he just told me he felt like shit and didn't know what to do with his life. I didn't know that his girlfriend cheated on him before our recent argument then.

We mainly talked about that. That he says he now trusts her and knows that she's now honest with him and that he doesn't give a shit that she cheated on him anyway. That I don't believe when he says he doesn't give a shit, since he was buried in a hole and ready to lay there until he dies when he contacted me the night he discovered that. That I don't believe that she's really honest with him now, and that what he calls trust is nothing but naivety and desperation.

Then I told him I wouldn't leave, but if he wanted me to go away, I would. And if he wanted me to stay, I would too, but he'd have to make me some room in his life, which is not possible if he already has someone. He kept on saying I was being mean and that it was breaking him down. He said I wasn't sharing him with anyone since he's not a object that people can own. Then he told me he tried breaking up with his girlfriend, but the pain was apparently too overwhelming for him to get over it. In other words, he says he suffers if he chooses me, he suffers if he chooses her, and he suffers and makes us suffer if he doesn't make a choice since I'm not down for a non-monogamous relationship. It seems like he wants me to be oblivious of his other relationship, as if I should forget that she's here and just pretend he's monogamous and only has me. He said he doesn't want that, but it's truly what I read between the lines. I may be wrong, obviously. He already said that what he wants to do is not making any choice and just letting things as they currently are: so having his girlfriend, and having me at the same time.

Other subject of this first argument was me running away from him when we were just speaking as friends, that is to say when I had all my rights. I was allowed to run away if seeing that he was falling for me and that I was feeling for him scared me. I wasn't ready for a relationship and since I wasn't involved in any kind of serious relationship with him, I considered that I had my right to run away and then come back if I felt like things were going forwards too fast. Still, it seems that he resents me for that, even if it's been months that I stopped running away and I agreed on this thing between us. This subject came because he said he should leave, he almost said he should take his life, and that everything would be better for his girlfriend and me if he just left. I disagreed, told him running wasn't an option here, and he started blaming me for running away when I wasn't in any way involved with him.

The second argument, well, I don't remember how it started out. Anyway, he told me that his girlfriend was here to support him when I was running away, that she was here to reassure him when I was unsure of my feelings for him, when I was undecided, that his girlfriend was nice with him even when things were about me; and that me, on the contrary, I'm not satisfied of what I have and I always want more. He said I already have everything I want (that is to say, him) but that I want more anyway (that is to say, a regular monogamous relationship). Then he told me that if he breaks up with her, she will surely commit suicide for she says there's no purpose of keeping on living without him. But things are blurry and I have a hard time really understanding the whole thing, for when I asked him, ”So you're not breaking up with her only because she's manipulating you?”, he answered, ”No, 'cause I know she won't do anything”.

Though he was first in a bad mood, a change of heart occurred and he was now okay with choosing me and leaving her, although minutes before he was telling me that he couldn't leave behind years of happy memories with her. I'm confused like I've never been. I reacted too quick, and thought he was serious and has simply made his decision; but now I realize that this was not a thoughtful decision and that he'll eventually get depressed again and resent me for forcing him to make him choose between his girlfriend and me. Though his girlfriend, from what I've seen, is toxic and manipulating, he seems to hold on to the happy memories he has with her and be oblivious of how poorly she now treats him. I can't help but think that he inexorably lives in the past and can't let go of it.

He copes mentally, he goes from really bad episodes to okay-ish ones to ”Yeah I'm totally fine, I'm choosing you for I love you and you're the most important thing in my life”. I don't think this is healthy, and I don't think we should stay together regarding his current mental state. He doesn't know what he wants and as one of you said, he'll resent me for making him choose as soon as his good episode ends.

This hurts me, and I feel shameful for not keeping my word, but I'm going to explain to him that this won't work and that we should break up. We can't have a healthy, working relationship when we see how bad it began and how bad it goes on. If he wants to go back with me when he sorts all his feelings out, without him being with another partner, without him not wanting what he truly wants, and with him understand that he needs professional help for some of his issues, then I'll say yes we can be in a relationship. But for now, it'll just make everyone and especially him suffer.[/size]