Will he change?

[LotusLaLune]

I just broke up with a guy I had been dating for over a year and a half and who I had also been living with for about a year. We had known each other for about 5 years as friends before we even started dating.

I am a 22 year old who works fulltime to support myself and goes to (almost) fulltime night school, working on my Bachelor's to eventually be a teacher. I am an honors student. I consider myself intelligent, hardworking, moral, and ambitious.

My ex, however, is very different. He is 24, will be 25 in September, dropped out of high school his senior year, never got his GED, won't go back to school, works at an organic/specialty grocery store which is like a big high school (everyone dates everyone, hang out together, a lot of the guys are all just womanizing loser who aren't going anywhere, wanna be musician types, etc.), smokes pot (too much), etc. He has no idea what he wants to do with his life. He bitches and moans about his job all the time, but he's worked there for going-on 6 years now and won't do ANYTHING to find another job or go back to school. He's even been handed job opportunities that he completely wasted for no other reason besides laziness and/or lack of motivation.

Despite all these differences, we are in love (still), and I was willing to look passed all these things as long as he treated me well.

So now we get to the real problems ... we have had ongoing issues with ex-girlfriends popping up into his life (calling him, emailing him, wanting him to hang out, and generally acting like they are still interested in him). He was supposed to stop talking to one, and then I found out he had initiated email contact with her behind my back. Another one he finally stopped talking to, but she STILL sends him messages from time to time. He ignores her, but she's like a roach I cannot get rid of.

On top of that, we've had a few issues about online cheating ... last August I logged into one of his email accounts (this is where I had found that he had been emailing the ex-girlfriend) and found that he had joined flickr or some kind of dating/quiz site. I asked him about it, and he said, "Oh, I saw it on Myspace and wanted to see what it was all about." I thought this was odd, but blew it off. I also found Adult Friend Finder on his internet history, which he blamed on his friend coming over and looking at ... couldn't prove or disprove that one.

Then, about three weeks ago, I found True.com and their login page on his internet history and threw a fit about it. When I asked him why he was there, he said it was because "I saw it on Myspace and I wanted to see what it was all about." Same answer. He swore up and down he didn't have an account, but I had a really hard time believing him.

Then this week, on Tuesday, I logged in to one of his really old yahoo email accounts (I had seen him using it in our living room the other day and thought it was odd because he is only supposed to be using his gmail account now) and found out that not only had he joined some other sleazy online porn/webcam/dating site (I saw the confirmation email with his username and password to prove it), but he has also been logging onto Craigslist, sending himself random females' personal ads that I guess he found "exciting", and then responding to them!

He was asking these girls, that he'd never seen or met before, to go out for drinks, which local bands they liked, told them he'd send them a photo of himself, was flirting with them, etc., etc. Some of the ads he responded to were not even dating ads but were straight up nasty "Hey, let's meet up and f***" ads ... I told him to get the hell out of my apartment.

Now he's leaving, and it's this huge ordeal of course, and I'm totally heartbroken and feel used, betrayed, etc. He was telling me he loved me every day (and still is), we have a perfectly healthy sex life (we never go more than a couple of days without sex and often have sex more than once per day, have no problem communicating or experimenting, etc.), and behind my back he was doing this??? It doesn't make any sense. When I asked him what made him do it, he said he doesn't even know.

Now he's begging me to stay with him, and I don't know what to do. We both know he has to move out no matter what, and he is, but he wants me to keep dating him even after he leaves. I'm like, "If I can't trust you in my own house, how the hell am I supposed to trust you somewhere else?" I told him I would constantly be wondering where he was, who he was with, what he was doing, etc.

He knows he royally screwed up, and he has cried like I have NEVER seen him cry before in the past few days, thrown himself on his knees, told me how sorry he is, that he would undo it all if he could, and tells me that he is going to do everything in his power to keep me in his life.

I told him that if he really loves me, he needs to follow through on everything that he said he would do - get his GED, go back to school and/or get a better job that doesn't make him so miserable he has to smoke pot all the time or drink to deal with it, prove to me (if that's even possible, and if it is I don't even know how) that I can trust him and that he is making severe changes in his lifestyle ... and we'll see what happens.

Right now I am waiting for him to move all of his stuff out and take some time apart to clear my head and let my emotions settle so I can get a handle on how I truly feel about everything.

I really want him to change, and I know people generally say that leopards don't change their spots. However, using myself as an example - I went through a really ****ty time in my life about 5 years ago, and I was dating a guy I was totally nuts about. I cheated on him a few times, and he found out, cheated on me, and it was over. After that, I realized a) how much it hurts to be cheated on, and b) how insanely guilty you feel by being a cheater and how it can totally **** you up and how disgusting it makes you feel (me anyway).

It took the next 2 years for me to recover from that relationship (both the damage done to me and the damage I did to myself by cheating), and to this day, I have since had 3 or 4 other relationships (which for various reasons didn't work out) but have never even so much as THOUGHT about cheating on any of my partners while I was with them. Almost as a hypocrite, I have become super strict about faithfulness, and it is now the most important thing, besides honesty and trust, to me in a relationship.

I truly did change and am a completely different person now. I'm not everyone else obviously, but occassionally you do hear about people changing. Every once in a while.

I guess at this point, all I can do is wait. Only time will tell.

I consider what he did cheating because it was "emotionally cheating" ... whether or not he met up with those girls, the fact that he was getting off on those sex messages and actively searching those sites for several days in a row means it wasn't just a random, one-time thing ... he was logging in every day to check this stuff. Which means something was making him unhappy in the relationship with me (which he swears up and down isn't true) or that he's got commitment/faithfulness/sex issues (obviously).

But how does anyone ever know if it's right to give someone a second chance?

Even though he hurt me so much, and I am hurting so bad right now, I still love him because when you invest deep emotions in someone like that, no matter what happens, those feelings don't just disappear overnight.

Part of me says just get my apartment key back from him and never talk to him again ... part of me says wait and see what happense.

Advice?

[ryanisfootdrums]

The only way this guy is going to change is if he wants to.

 

I think you breaking up with him might make him reevaluate his life and what he wants out of it.

 

But judging from just how unmotivated he has been in the past it would take a miracle from God for him to change. He is a lazy dope-smoking slacker who cheats on you and treats you poorly.

 

You deserve better.

 

You have done the right thing.

 

I wish the best for you.

 

-Ryan

[sb129]

He might change, but not while life is so much "fun" for him.

 

You are still young! Go out and have a good time, and don;t invest any more time or effort into this guy.

 

He needs to grow up, and he probably won't do that anytime soon.

 

Your life is just beginning, there will be many more opportunities for love!

 

I shudder to think what my life would be like if I had styaed with the BF I had when I was 22... eek!

 

Live and learn!

Good luck!

[Chrome Barracuda]

I just broke up with a guy I had been dating for over a year and a half and who I had also been living with for about a year. We had known each other for about 5 years as friends before we even started dating.

I am a 22 year old who works fulltime to support myself and goes to (almost) fulltime night school, working on my Bachelor's to eventually be a teacher. I am an honors student. I consider myself intelligent, hardworking, moral, and ambitious.

My ex, however, is very different. He is 24, will be 25 in September, dropped out of high school his senior year, never got his GED, won't go back to school, works at an organic/specialty grocery store which is like a big high school (everyone dates everyone, hang out together, a lot of the guys are all just womanizing loser who aren't going anywhere, wanna be musician types, etc.), smokes pot (too much), etc. He has no idea what he wants to do with his life. He bitches and moans about his job all the time, but he's worked there for going-on 6 years now and won't do ANYTHING to find another job or go back to school. He's even been handed job opportunities that he completely wasted for no other reason besides laziness and/or lack of motivation.

Despite all these differences, we are in love (still), and I was willing to look passed all these things as long as he treated me well.

So now we get to the real problems ... we have had ongoing issues with ex-girlfriends popping up into his life (calling him, emailing him, wanting him to hang out, and generally acting like they are still interested in him). He was supposed to stop talking to one, and then I found out he had initiated email contact with her behind my back. Another one he finally stopped talking to, but she STILL sends him messages from time to time. He ignores her, but she's like a roach I cannot get rid of.

On top of that, we've had a few issues about online cheating ... last August I logged into one of his email accounts (this is where I had found that he had been emailing the ex-girlfriend) and found that he had joined flickr or some kind of dating/quiz site. I asked him about it, and he said, "Oh, I saw it on Myspace and wanted to see what it was all about." I thought this was odd, but blew it off. I also found Adult Friend Finder on his internet history, which he blamed on his friend coming over and looking at ... couldn't prove or disprove that one.

Then, about three weeks ago, I found True.com and their login page on his internet history and threw a fit about it. When I asked him why he was there, he said it was because "I saw it on Myspace and I wanted to see what it was all about." Same answer. He swore up and down he didn't have an account, but I had a really hard time believing him.

Then this week, on Tuesday, I logged in to one of his really old yahoo email accounts (I had seen him using it in our living room the other day and thought it was odd because he is only supposed to be using his gmail account now) and found out that not only had he joined some other sleazy online porn/webcam/dating site (I saw the confirmation email with his username and password to prove it), but he has also been logging onto Craigslist, sending himself random females' personal ads that I guess he found "exciting", and then responding to them!

He was asking these girls, that he'd never seen or met before, to go out for drinks, which local bands they liked, told them he'd send them a photo of himself, was flirting with them, etc., etc. Some of the ads he responded to were not even dating ads but were straight up nasty "Hey, let's meet up and f***" ads ... I told him to get the hell out of my apartment.

Now he's leaving, and it's this huge ordeal of course, and I'm totally heartbroken and feel used, betrayed, etc. He was telling me he loved me every day (and still is), we have a perfectly healthy sex life (we never go more than a couple of days without sex and often have sex more than once per day, have no problem communicating or experimenting, etc.), and behind my back he was doing this??? It doesn't make any sense. When I asked him what made him do it, he said he doesn't even know.

Now he's begging me to stay with him, and I don't know what to do. We both know he has to move out no matter what, and he is, but he wants me to keep dating him even after he leaves. I'm like, "If I can't trust you in my own house, how the hell am I supposed to trust you somewhere else?" I told him I would constantly be wondering where he was, who he was with, what he was doing, etc.

He knows he royally screwed up, and he has cried like I have NEVER seen him cry before in the past few days, thrown himself on his knees, told me how sorry he is, that he would undo it all if he could, and tells me that he is going to do everything in his power to keep me in his life.

I told him that if he really loves me, he needs to follow through on everything that he said he would do - get his GED, go back to school and/or get a better job that doesn't make him so miserable he has to smoke pot all the time or drink to deal with it, prove to me (if that's even possible, and if it is I don't even know how) that I can trust him and that he is making severe changes in his lifestyle ... and we'll see what happens.

Right now I am waiting for him to move all of his stuff out and take some time apart to clear my head and let my emotions settle so I can get a handle on how I truly feel about everything.

I really want him to change, and I know people generally say that leopards don't change their spots. However, using myself as an example - I went through a really ****ty time in my life about 5 years ago, and I was dating a guy I was totally nuts about. I cheated on him a few times, and he found out, cheated on me, and it was over. After that, I realized a) how much it hurts to be cheated on, and b) how insanely guilty you feel by being a cheater and how it can totally **** you up and how disgusting it makes you feel (me anyway).

It took the next 2 years for me to recover from that relationship (both the damage done to me and the damage I did to myself by cheating), and to this day, I have since had 3 or 4 other relationships (which for various reasons didn't work out) but have never even so much as THOUGHT about cheating on any of my partners while I was with them. Almost as a hypocrite, I have become super strict about faithfulness, and it is now the most important thing, besides honesty and trust, to me in a relationship.

I truly did change and am a completely different person now. I'm not everyone else obviously, but occassionally you do hear about people changing. Every once in a while.

I guess at this point, all I can do is wait. Only time will tell.

I consider what he did cheating because it was "emotionally cheating" ... whether or not he met up with those girls, the fact that he was getting off on those sex messages and actively searching those sites for several days in a row means it wasn't just a random, one-time thing ... he was logging in every day to check this stuff. Which means something was making him unhappy in the relationship with me (which he swears up and down isn't true) or that he's got commitment/faithfulness/sex issues (obviously).

But how does anyone ever know if it's right to give someone a second chance?

Even though he hurt me so much, and I am hurting so bad right now, I still love him because when you invest deep emotions in someone like that, no matter what happens, those feelings don't just disappear overnight.

Part of me says just get my apartment key back from him and never talk to him again ... part of me says wait and see what happense.

Advice?

 

Will he change? Honestly? Hell no!!!

 

a man has to want to change for himself. He wants to do better for himself, he has to be motivated to change on his own and it comes from within. Yeah you can be a catalyst for change, your actions may change his mindset about life and causes him to change. but he will not change for you. No man changes for a woman.

 

That man has to change for himself. The realest ish I ever wrote.

 

You sound like you have it all together and your head on straight? why are you with this guy if all he's gonna do is drag you down. You should be with someone that wants to raise you up in the world and be there with you, support your dreams, your lover and confidant. You expect him to become this person. You think you can change him?