I keep alternating between thinking him to be some evil monster and wanting to defend him. I'm so used to blaming myself that accepting maybe someone else wasn't perfect is hard for me. (Sheesh, I still make excuses for my parents.)

And I know I'm not easy to deal with. My complete lack of self worth tends to require a lot of reassurance. That has to be draining.

He did tell me it was my fault that he changed at one point. In reference to points 10-11.

When we met he was a lovely guy, funny, smart and generally great to be around in a little clingy and a little over attached for a friendship formed over the internet. Somehow he managed to rope me into phone sex but I never really thought anything of it. It's the internet for crying out loud.

One day he says to me that if I had a chance to get laid he would be okay with it and expected the same from me. Of course this just reaffirmed my beliefs in the casuality of our relationship.

I got involved with someone and when I told him he threw the mother of all tantrums saying he was joking. I was horrified I never meant to hurt him and begged forgiveness he then says that he wasn't really upset he understood but that he really did not want me to be with someone else.

Okay. Still not entirely sure but he was so nice (perfect really) and he had so much faith in us and I started to think maybe it was possible for us to work and allowed myself to really feel for him.

Some time and many arguments later usually about the way he had become distant he tells me that the problem is that initial transgression of mine and that he had been waiting for me to earn his forgiveness.

I threw away all dignity and said I would do whatever he wanted. It was here he stated that I wasn't to whine at him for a month. (A later argument when he again brought up that incident it was revealed that I failed that test- yes, I honestly tried- because I dared to mention I wasn't in a very good place at one point.)

What I'm getting at here is that although I didn't believe we had something he did and that what happened must have hurt him (especially if -as he says- almost every girlfriend in his past has cheated on him.) Maybe I did deserve his change in persona.

Or maybe I'm just trying to make excuses because I can't believe I was so stupid as to let him treat me the way I did for as long as I did and that I still feel so pathetically attached to him.

It requires a certain type of loserdom to still care for someone who's made you feel so awful.

EDIT: Actually, it's odd. He prides himself on being able to cut people from his life when they upset him and I apparently never did anything bad enough for him to cut me off (he said so himself) and yet this thing was apparently bad enough for him to throw in my face at every opportunity.