Should I stay or should I go?

Hello lovely people. I am in need of advice. This is going to be a long one so thanks an advance for sticking through it. I just feel like I need to start from the beginning.

In January of this year, I was single and toying with returning to a previous relationship (who we will call Tom) that ended because it felt stagnant. It was also the time that a childhood crush of mine moved home after breaking off an engagement a few months earlier (who we will call Alex). Alex and I ended up getting along great, he is attractive and fun to be around. So we started hooking up. It was my understanding that there was a mutual interest and I had cut back with Tom because I thought maybe Alex and I would date. Everything was fine until Alex texted me one night and said that it was fine if I wanted to sleep with other people, just to let him know so we could take extra precautions. It was completely out of the blue and it made it seem to me like he was trying to let me down easy and say that he wanted to keep things between us sexual. So I just said okay and I would let him know. I hung out with Tom on Valentine’s Day because I didn’t think anything about what was happening with Alex was serious anymore; that he ultimately just told me he liked me in the flirty, come over way. Which felt like the case.

A few weeks later I went to dinner with Alex, and I left my Apple Watch in his car by accident. He got drunk and guessed the passcode. Then proceeded to read all of my messages on it. It made me very very uncomfortable, especially when he used my sexts with other people against me. I understood it hurt him that I wasn’t only talking to him, but I was under the impression that he was also talking to other people. I never slept with anyone but Alex, but did assume he was sleeping with other people. I adopted the don’t ask don’t tell logic in our situation. It was better for my mental health. He blew up on me about what he found on my watch and I explained to him that I was under the impression what he and I were doing was more casual than it was based on that text, that I should have asked him to clarify, and I apologized for misunderstanding.

Fast forward a few months and we were more seriously testing the waters. I had less contact with Tom, no more than just the way friends chat. Tom and I realized we were stagnant as a couple because we were more like friends than we were romantic. Alex was weird about every single thing I did. Always accusing me of not being where I said I was, and asking me to prove it. I am hard headed so I wouldn’t because that’s not the kind of relationship I wanted to be in. Alex didn’t like that I am friends with a lot of my exes, as few of my relationships have ended less than amicably. It’s easy to talk to people you know very well with no bad blood on either side. Nothing too serious, just life and our families, ect. Not a flirty or sexual nature to the conversations.

Alex and I started dating and I handled ending my other casual things. But I started to get very protective of my phone and stopped wearing my watch because I was just uncomfortable after feeling so stripped bare by Alex that way. He started driving by my house (I live with my parents) on these “drives” he would take when I was home. For example, one night it was late on a Saturday or Sunday and I had gone to a coworkers house because of a fight with my mom. He was on a flight from Dallas to Maryland when the fight happened. By the time he got off the plane, it was late and I was asleep. He drove by my house and saw my car wasn’t there. He called me violently until I answered, half asleep, and told him I was at my coworkers because I fought with my mom and needed to leave. He used to try to get me to let him come over late at night or to get me to stay at his place when I just wasn’t comfortable. But, he and I had a lot of history, and when we were happy we were really good together. So I decided to stay around.

I was constantly being accused of doing things I wasn’t like cheating or lying. No matter what I said, truth or not, I was obviously lying to him. I’m the meantime Tom’s family dog, who we both grew up with, got cancer. At first the prognosis was very very bad, so I went over to say goodbye one night. Tom wasn’t there, just his family. I said my goodbyes to Rudy. But they found a treatment to try and he lives for a little longer.

My birthday is in May, and my family planned this “family game night” to have for me. But my family is the type to just kind of do what they wanted and not what I wanted. I was told it was family only, so Alex couldn’t come. The actual reason he couldn’t come was because my mom invited Tom in hopes of getting us back together because my mom preferred Tom to Alex. It was an awful experience and I didn’t really say anything more about it to Alex because he already felt bad, and I was really hurt. I kind of shut down about how it felt to be manipulated like that on my birthday. Especially after I had invited Tom over the weekend before have an in person conversation over in which I told him I was serious about dating Alex, that I understand it hurt him, but to please let me love my life how I wanted to. That I would be there for him if he needed me for something big, but that we were not romantically involved anymore. I lied to Alex about it. I told him he wasn’t there both times. Because I was so tired of being accused of doing questionable things all the time and I was scared of the aftermath of it all. Yes, I am aware it was stupid. But when you’re desperate, you make desperate decisions. After, I never spoke about it again.

A few months later, Alex and I were still dating and Tom sent me news that they would be putting Rudy to sleep, that the cancer was getting worse, and the time and date it would happen if I wanted to come. I decided to go. Saying goodbye to Rudy was important to me. He was a wonderful dog and had grown up with me for five years of my life. After, Alex got even weirder. He followed Tom on Instagram, which made me very uncomfortable. He drove by my house on his drives at least 5 times a week. He wanted me to talk with him despite being at work or being asleep. Until the night he drove by my house, called me 15 times, and told my my bedroom light was on so I had to be awake and ignoring him. I was asleep. At around 11:30p the motion light for my house came on and it shined in my window which woke me up. My theory is still that he drove into my driveway and when the light came on, drove away. He denies that still. I let it go, chalked it up to a coincidence, and continued life. I had a friend I met through Twitter that was just a cool kid who had some issues with his mental health and I was trying to be a good part of his support system. I didn’t realize he had romantic feelings for me and they came to light one night after I sent him a picture of my sunburn for an event I was at. I had said something like “ignore my arm fat” or something. It made me as uncomfortable as it made Alex. And I was again being accused of being unfaithful.

The second time he did something weird was when my coworker was out of town, and she left her car at work as she was picked up from there to go to the airport by her parents. He dropped me off at work that day and said that he thought she was out of town. I said she was and explained why her car was there. He told me later that day, after we fought for hours, that he was going to drive up the road i work on to go to Frederick. I knew he was driving by to see if my coworkers car was still there, but he wouldn’t admit it. So I called her and told her that our boss had people delivering new fleet vehicles and needed her car moved. She got her parents to move it, and when it wasn’t there he FLIPPED out on me. I had caught him in a lie.

At that point, he and I broke up. We didn’t speak for about a month. I blocked him on everything. Until the baseball game came that he had bought me tickets for as a birthday gift. He took his best friend and I bought my own tickets to go with my best friend. After, he and I talked. He apologized for what he did to me and he was in therapy. Alex seemed to be doing better. I started therapy myself as I hit a deep depression as a result of stress and health issues. We rekindled and I took the reigns on initiating the real relationship.

At this point it’s been probably 4 months since then and we were doing very well until we labeled the relationship as dating. I basically live with him. Now he gets so angry all the time again. He caught me in my lie about Tom not being at my house the weekend before my birthday. I explained to Alex why he was there, why I was dishonest, and told him I know I lost trust from him, that I have to face that music, and that I was sorry. That he and I are in a different and healthier place now so I don’t feel any need to lie about anything because he and I both have more trust for each other and understand one another’s minds better.

There’s no one else I really see myself with. But at the same time, I’m wondering if by letting myself stay in this relationship, if I’m allowing a very toxic person run my life. I find myself feeling almost invisible. My problems are never the biggest problems because they’re not Alex’s. I clean the apartment, I do laundry, I grocery shop. I rarely get thank yous or anything. I take care of his son if he needs me to when he is here and I always take care of his dog. I’m willing to help him with bills or anything else he could need. I feel like I have made mistakes, so has everyone, and so has he. They were our past. I feel like I am doing everything I possibly can to make him happy. And today I just asked. I said “are you happy being with me?” He responded with “Honestly, rn i dont think i’m happy with anything in my life.” I don’t know what to say to that or what to do. I don’t know why he would stay with me if he is so miserable. I guess the same reason I stay with him despite the bad. But at what point do my grievances that he ignored become a focus over the fact that I lied to him, and am willing to discuss it and face those consequences?

I’m just a terrible person for lying, regardless, especially considering I consider myself to be fairly honest most of the time.

Sigh. My life is a mess. Please try not to be super mean here. I know I have made bad decisions.