I have been dating my boyfriend for two years. I love him so very much.

When we first started dating we barely ever texted each other because we saw each other everyday and soon after that he moved in with me and we lived together while in undergrad. During the summers away from each other in grad school he would get antsy if I didn’t text him a majority of my day. So we texted any time that we weren’t busy and I got used to the constant communication.

Fast forward and now I’m in grad school and we live two hours away. My first year in grad school has been really challenging with us. We tried an open relationship which was supposed to be transparent but he ended up lying and hiding things from me so I couldn’t trust him and we ended that. Then after the open relationship ended due to him hiding things from me, I would look through his phone and see that he was calling me his crazy ex girlfriend to random women but we were still dating. I called him out on it and he apologized and said it was just an ego boost because he had been feeling down about himself. I forgave him and we moved on. Then almost a month ago he got in trouble due to an inappropriate relationship rumor at work that wasn’t entirely true but he had been telling this girl that he was single and was trying to hang out with her. I forgave him for that too.

We had been doing really well but recently he’s been ignoring me for hours on end until I yell and complain about being ignored. He lies to me about ridiculous things. I can see his location and he can see mine so I asked him today if he was home all day and he said yes but I could see that he went somewhere that I didn’t recognize today.

We have been having problems and I’m not perfect in the relationship so I don’t fully blame him for all the problems we’ve been having... I have a lot of insecurities that show up but I’m working on it. He’s in a really depressive state and I want to help him but I also want to help myself and make myself happy. I don’t know what to do to make him be honest with me and start showing some effort in the relationship when he can’t even put the effort into his own life. I need advice on what to do, someone help me in the nicest way possible 😞