I have a question…🙄

I know my account isn’t really meant for this kind of thing, but I need to know the answer. The thing is, I was with my boyfriend for 4 years. From the very beginning of the relationship, he was very intense — but I was the same, so I didn’t worry. I always told him that one day he’d get tired of me because he even started distancing himself from his friends.

Soon after, he started treating me terribly. He’d leave me hanging, wouldn’t make plans with me, he’d come home after going out and if he saw me crying because he had literally disappeared without saying anything, he’d get mad and say awful things to me. He acted like that for almost two years. He cheated on me several times (once he slept with a girl, and the rest were just talking to others), but the thing is, he never wanted me to leave. If he saw that I stopped crying over him, he’d suddenly get worried.

Out of nowhere, he’d be amazing one day, and then change the next. One day he loved me deeply, the next he wanted to leave me. And then, during the last year of the relationship, he treated me really well — gave me everything I asked for — but I couldn’t handle the emotional burden of everything he had done to me.

I was the one who had to end the relationship.

My question is: why did he do all that and still want me close? Why did he cheat on me, say he didn’t want to be with me, but then get scared if I went out? Why didn’t he react to my anxiety attacks or the sleepless nights, but then told me later on that seeing me like that did hurt him? There’s so much more I could explain, but you get the idea — I was his “first love,” but he was a complete disaster to me. Can someone explain this if they’ve managed to understand it all?