I cheated months ago early in a new relationship. Tried to fix it, but couldn’t. Should I have stayed through constant verbal abuse?

Like I said, early in a long distance relationship, I kissed a girl with the intention to sleep with her. It was wrong. There is no other way to put it. I won’t offer any excuses for it. I sabotaged what could have been a good relationship because of my own insecurities and fears. I promise you, nothing you can say to me would be worse than what I have said to myself for this.

It was soon after deciding to commit to my new girlfriend. After recognizing the wrongness of it, I knew I needed to confess what I had done and let her decide what to do. Thus began a cycle of her yelling and calling me names, me taking it because I felt like I deserved it, her breaking up, me letting her break up because she told me she wanted to, her berating me for not fighting for what I want, which was her, and then her asking for us to keep trying, promising that she could get past it if I just promised her I loved her. And I would. And things would be good for a while. Until they weren’t again. She dug into every detail, she dug into my mind asking for every thought I could possibly have that could prove to her that I was going to cheat again. I would say or do something wrong, and

There is a lot more to it, obviously. There was so much love and attraction there as well. I also felt total grief and shame for what I had done. So when she would yell, I would take it in silence, not fighting back on the name calling and the swearing. Accepting the words she said as full truth. Taking every name she called me and internalizing it. I felt like I was in church again, confessing my sins to my preacher.

We met last June. We said “I love you” in July. I kissed the girl in August. I told my now ex about it in September.

I spent the next five months trying to make up for it. Trying to repay the debt I owed to her for hurting her.

Giving her everything I could, listening to her every word and need, trying to provide a space for her to heal. Because I’ve never been loved before. And she said she could get past it. I just had to be there for her to heal.

But I walked on eggshells in every conversation. The wrong word or comment in a conversation led to violent outbursts. I felt like we were in a toxic cycle. That I had hurt her too much, that there was no chance we could work. Every time I let her break up with me, she would call me a coward for not fighting for her.

There was a last straw. She called me a coward again. She broke up with me. I accepted it this time, and this time I said no when she woke up the next day regretting breaking up. I ended it.

Then we somehow managed to become friendly. She became a lot nicer when she stopped caring about the relationship. That happened rather quickly. It’s taken me a lot longer to work through the pain of all this.

I realized at a certain point that the yelling and name calling, unlike what she originally said, had nothing to do with me. I was just the reason she needed to let it out. She explained to me that yelling and name calling is normal in relationships. That you need to be able to express yourself in arguments, express your emotions without being broken up with. But I felt like I could not express my own emotions. I could only take hers into my heart.

I called it verbal abuse. This hurt her really bad, but she immediately explained it as just a part of her culture (she is from another country). She felt no remorse for it, and expressed again that yelling and name calling is a normal way to express your emotions. I think we would have gotten to this point at some point even if I never had cheated in the first place. It’s just how she expresses anger.

I guess I got tired of the price I had to pay to “fix” things. But I also have a different idea of what healing is. I felt like we were stuck in this toxic cycle, and that I had to be the one to get us out of it. I know she would have come back again if I had only begged for her forgiveness and love again. And we would have been back there again two weeks later. And two weeks after that. It would have been indefinite. So I finally said “no more.”

So I gotta ask, with all this in mind, am I crazy? Is it normal to yell and call names at the person you call your partner? Did I deserve it for months on end?Should I have just accepted it for longer? Or was I right to finally break the cycle?

Let me know what ya think. I am genuinely interested. I want to learn from this experience and be a better person. I don’t ever want to repeat my mistakes.