Feeling ambivalent and confused, am I overreacting??

Hello! This is my first post so thank you for reading and taking time to consider offering advice :) I'll try to keep this as short and to the point as possible.

My boyfriend and I have been dating for 5 months-ish but these short 5 months have been pretty turbulent for the amount of time we have together. It mostly stems from his self-esteem and security issues. We're both in college, and his particular situation is very stressful at the moment. We started off having issues with his jealousy. It later progressed to discovering our differences in personality when the going got a little tough. He tends to turn to smoking ciggarrettes, weed and drinking out with his buddies when he encounters high stress as all ways to escape and give himself a break. I don't really have a problem with those things, I just dont like that hes using them to escape and that being under the influence could possibly be a precursor to stupid decision making. I, on the other hand, am very reserved, introverted ish and very independent. He at times didn't feel like i was giving him what he expected, due to our personality differences and vice versa. Anyway, we tried to come to an agreement on that and continued to work through those differences. However, what recently tipped me over was an incident last week.

We had just finished finals and finally were looking forward to spend the last few days together (before i came back home on vacation for quite a while) and I was excited i went out of my way to plan a romantic night in and bought expensive drinks and made cocktails. So this was after the recent encounter of our differences and after some long and painful talks to come to a compromise of scaling back the intensity and seriousness of the relationship so we were a bit raw and uneasy still and he was still recovering from academic and family stress. So he came over, I was kept waiting for almost an hour, and when he eventually came over, i was admittedly mad about his lateness and noticed he was dressed really nicely for just coming over to my place. Only then did he admit that he was actually going to go out with his buddies to graduation goodbye party "after this". So that hurt, because he literally had only made 30 minutes for me. And especially after all my effort that he did not recognize. So he ended up seducing me and i caved and we hooked up. Almost immediately after finishing, he put his clothes back on and said he had to go meet his friends now. I felt so disgusted and used and hurt beyond belief, I couldn't believe someone who claimed to love me and want to be my boyfriend would pull such a douchebag move. I am particularly sensitive about this particular act because during a time when i was really low and insecure, i let men come and get what they want quite literally just walk out of my place or kick me out right after.

The next day he extremely lagged on my texts, continued the excuses and I decided I would not tolerate that and I told him that I was done the night after. He's been calling me saying hes sorry, to please please forgive him and that theres another view point and side to what happened. that he didnt aim to come off like he was using me that night to get off, that he thought it was okay to just have sex sometimes because i had said sometimes thats what you want from your partner and because i was the one that suggested a more casual relationship. That may be true but i never said id be okay with him just leaving after. He's been begging for another chance and crying and calling and it hurts me to know hes acting like this but I just can't shake this feeling of him having disrespected me deeply and having clearly pushed me to second place on top of other factors in his life. I know the hook up thing was probably not on the same level as those other guys in my past but I feel as though its a combination of a lot of factors as well. I don't know if it's worth it anymore but im at a crossroads because perhaps things could have developed more if it was during a different time period, or if we had just calmed down and given it more time and effort. He's otherwise been very sweet to me and its clear he adores me. We've had our share of moments. Maybe things have just slowly faded and the stress of life has gotten a bit much. Maybe my expectations are a little too far from reality.

Gosh, this is more of just a rant lol, thanks enotalone for the self therapy platform haah. Any insight and input or past experiences would be appreciated.

Eh, I wouldn't bother trying to put this relationship back together.

There are a number of incompatibilities, and after only 5 months, you two have already chosen to take a step back and keep things more casual. What led you to suggest that to begin with, specifically? Time apart isn't going to solve anything if you two are not working together to fix things.

There have obviously been big enough problems to dial back the seriousness of the relationship, which strongly suggests this isn't a match.

Well, at first you talk about how much your boyfriend loves you, but then you list several relationship-killers which has me thinking that you're being emotionally abused, and instead of being in love, you have an emotional dependency that keeps you from leaving him.

First of all, jealousy and anger are used by abusers to control and manipulate their partners. Claiming that they love you so much they can't stand to see you with another guy actually serves to isolate you from other people and the anger acts as a conditioning mechanism. You don't want him to go off, so you change your behavior to suit him.

Then apparently the slightest stress sets him off smoking, drinking and doing drugs, and totally ignoring you. These "coping mechanisms" usually escalate with time, which is a predictor of a future relationship with him. You, being introverted, seem to think this is normal behavior for non-introverted people, but I think it goes beyond the basic finals partying and it shows narcissistic tendencies where life is only about him.

Your next example where you planned a romantic dinner because you're going away soon is totally narcissistic on his part. He has sex with you and takes off to be with his buddies. It's classic abuse behavior where he's testing to see how much he can get away with and condition you to get use to this behavior. You called him on it.

And then you got the next classic abuse syndrome where the partner goes out of his way to profess his love and beg for another chance. Abusers are good at putting on a show like this, and many people mistake these big shows of affection as the "good" part of the relationship. After all, the normal boyfriend doesn't go to these extremes to get back in their partner's good graces. But it's too much. It's exaggerated. Again, it's more about you leaving him than him apologizing.

Deep down, you know something's wrong, and I hope I've filled in the blanks. You can Google "emotional abuse" and "emotional dependency" to read more about what I've written. See if your boyfriend fits the lists of symptoms. I would use the summer months to dump this guy and find a new guy who doesn't have the problems your current boyfriend has.

If you get back together, you will see that his "new, improved" behavior won't last very long. He has shown you who he is, so believe him. His unwarranted jealousy makes you pay for a crime you never committed. His smoking weed, etc., might not bother you now, but over the years, you will resent the money he spends on it, instead of stuff you really need or for fun things like vacations. If you needed him to pick you up because of an emergency, what if he was high at the time and couldn't safely drive you anywhere? What if his job tested him for drugs and he was fired? And when you don't feel like a priority, you're not.

Choosing a long term partner is one of the most important decisions of your life. Your brain and heart have to match, which lets you know it's a wise choice. He is not a wise choice.

DanZee with the *micdrop*.

Seriously that response was perfect. You should take that info to heart and remember it going forward. With someone new.

I think that his move that night you hooked up was not classy. He should have recognized your effort and paid more attention to how his actions were making you feel.

Yet, on the other hand, you did want a less serious, more casual relationship. Are you setting an impossible standard by asking him to give both less serious and more serious? You did say that less serious is what you wanted. Maybe he was unsuccessfully trying to be less serious, and he isn't good at it.

You need to decide what is more important: being right or forgiving him for how he handled that evening--depending upon the outcome you're after.

But still, that doesn't remove the insurmountable obstacle in your relationship which is: you and he are not compatible and forcing a fit does not make you two compatible enough to sustain a long term go at relationship.

Here's what I'm reading: you finished your finals and in between the time you had before you went home for the summer, you wanted to see him, so you came up with an idea and didn't really run it past him---you assumed he wasn't going to be doing anything else that evening, so you never got around to being specific about what the evening would entail. He'd made other plans and didn't tell you the specifics of his time that evening, either. So what you two need to work on is your communication with one another because both of you had a completely different idea about how that evening was supposed to go and neither scenarios were in the same universe.

The rest of it is unsorted baggage from past relationships triggering you.

Your relationship, at the 5 month mark, is at the point where weak foundation relationship fail. If you can't get your communication skills beefed up, this is going to completely break down.