Want to mend my relationship with myself (18m) and my ex (18f)
Sorry for the wall of text :(
**tl;dr:** I was an abusive and controlling boyfriend, she put up with it, we started to get better, she became controlling, I talked to a few girls behind her back, she found out, broke up with me. I'm trying to win her back. She still loves me, I've changed, and we get better, but her fear gets in the way, and I start all over. How can I show her she can trust me, and I've truly changed? Also, because of where I grew up, I get really bothered by things like bikinis. I feel that it shows too much skin. I know it's not normal, and want to change that about myself. Any help?
Alright, for everyone to understand this fully, I'm gonna start from the beginning. So, I grew up in Pakistan, with a conservative muslim family. After living in north america for a while, I became a lot more open than I was before. But there were still things that really bothered me. So, fast forward to the end of grade 10, I meet this girl, and we're talking a lot and what not. I ask her out, she basically said no, and friendzoned me. I kept chasing her, and she fell for me, but wasn't ready to be in a relationship. Her reason? "I don't want my ex-bf to be sad, I'm not sure how he'll take it" At this point, they were still good friends. It didn't bother me that they were friends, but it bother me that he was her reason for saying no. So, this lasts about two months, and we're basically dating, but not official. Because we werent official, and no one really knew what was happening between us, and one day her ex randomly just kisses her, and that really upset me. She told me that "oh i told him never to do something like that again, blah blah." So, I confronted her about it one night, and told her that I was tired of her putting her ex's feelings above mine, and that if she wanted to be with me, then she needed to make her decisions, and that she was just leaving me hanging. The next day she asked me out.
So, we're going out, and it's great, other than the fact that she lives in another city (We met because of a mutual friend). So we're long distance from the very beginning. Now, we were talking one night, and I find out that her and her ex almost had sex and what not. Now, this is where part I'm not proud of starts. It was really hard for me to accept that she had gone that far with her ex, and it really hurt me. I began to become more and more controlling. I asked her to cut him out of her life, and she did. I began to give her rules about what she could wear, and what she couldn't wear, who she could talk to, and so on. I would get upset over little things, and generally was a total little shit. She put up with it all. She listened to everything, accommodated as much as she could for me. Over the course of our relationship, I started to get better. Less controlling and so on.
Fastforward to summer of grade 12. She was working, and it was essentially full time. She wasn't normally home, didn't talk to me much at work, and at night would hang out with her cousins, we would talk for about an hour, and then she would want to go to bed because she was tired. This continued for essentially the entire summer. Now, for some people that's fine, but for us, we had been talking every single day, essentially all day. To this day, there hasn't been a day where we haven't talked since we met. Anyways, so I felt ignored, lonely and I talked to her about it. She said that she felt that one hour was enough, and that I was making a big deal for no reason.
Fastforward to first year university, we go to different universities, and I was really busy with school. I was at school a lot, came home late, was normally busy, etc. She was really lonely in semester one, and for that I feel terrible. It was essentially how I was during the summer. She never really told me that she was lonely when I was gone. Somedays she would be like "hey, i'm really lonely can you please come home?" and I would come home. I guess i'm at fault for not realizing that she was lonely all the time.. But, she started to become a little more controlling. She started to ask me so not talk to any girls. I distanced myself from them to an extend, however still communicated with them when I needed to. I guess I didn't really distance myself from them all that much. I would still talk to some girls behind her back.
Fastforward to semester two, she found out. She was torn apart, she was crying, and she dumped me. It was that moment that everything flashed through my mind, and I realized how horrible I had been to her, how much I had hurt her. I cried my eyes out, and begged her for forgiveness, I asked her to give me another chance, and for weeks she was distant. I mean, we still talked, but it was mostly her yelling at me, telling me to go die, or that she hoped I was dead, or that I was worse than the scum of the earth, etc. She ran back to her ex for comfort, they started talking again, she would continuously tell me about how caring he is, and how he complements her in every sentence, continuously asks her out and really cares about her. It felt like she was just trying to do whatever she could to hurt me. So, this was near valentines day, and I went, bought her an awesome teddy bear, expensive chocolates, wrote her a letter, and bought her flowers. I bussed three hours to her university, and showed up at her door. She saw me, and literally froze. She stood there doing nothing. I went to her room, put my stuff down, and was about to leave. She grabbed my hand, and took me to her room. She didn't do much talking, just started to bring stuff I gave her to me. She was trying to give it all back. I took a few things, but left the rest. While I was there, her ex texted her. She picked it up, showed it to me, and was like "See? a complement in every sentence. Man, he must really care about me." She had to go to class, so she went to class, and told me to clean and vaccum her room, so I did. After she came back, I went home.
We continued to talk every night. I would get calls in the middle of the night from her. Sometimes she would yell at me, tell me off, hang up on me, and refuse to answer my calls, then call me 4 hours later, and despite the fact that I had tried to call her back like 20 times, and text her, she would still get mad at me if I fell asleep from exhaustion, to her that meant that I didn't love her. So, we go through this phase, and things start to get better. We start talking more, becoming more and more friendly, etc etc. She was had never wanted to drink before. But for some reason, she wanted to drink with me (neither of us had drank alcohol at all at this point) really badly now. So, we talk a lot more, she tells me about how she felt neglected because I never called her, she would always call me, I never asked to come over, she would ask me. So, I asked her if I could come over, and she said yes. So we talked about it more, and decided that I would come over, stay for the weekend, and sleep on the couch. So, I go over, we're talking, she was really shy, as if it was her first time ever being alone with me, but she started to warm up. When she wanted to sleep, I told her I would go sleep on the couch, but she told me that id be too far from her, so I told her I would be on the couch, and she could just get me if she needed anything, but she said that it was still too far, so I told her I would sleep on the ground beside her bed. She didn't want me to, because she was afraid it was too uncomfortable, but I insisted on sleeping on the floor. I essentially got a bed ready, and was laying down. We turned off the light, and she grabbed my arm and pulled me on the bed. We cuddled all night.
I finally felt that things were starting to get better. We started to talk more, things started to go back to the way they used to be. She kept talking about drinking together, and I asked her why all of a sudden she wanted to drink together so bad, and her reason was that "Maybe if I drink, i'll be more exciting and fun, and you wont lie to me and be with other girls" When she said that, my heart melted, and I cried myself to sleep because of what I had done to her. I went over again, we bought drinks, got set up, played poker, drinking games, and so on. Neither of us enjoyed the taste of alcohol however, it made her brave, and she came on to me. We had sex (wasn't the first time, our sex life during our relationship was great) and cuddled all night. The next day we had sex twice, and just talked. We generally stayed up late at night just talking. So, I went home, we kept talking.
Everything was going amazing, until one night we had a fight. I honestly don't remember what it was about, but I was laying in bed talking to her on the phone, and she was scared our relationship would become how it used to be, and I assured her it wouldn't, made her laugh, cheered her up, and put her to bed. I went to her house again that weekend, we continued to have sex (no alcohol this time), cuddle together, watch tv shows, and stay up all night talking. The next day I asked if I could come over, I wanted to surprise her with a few gifts to cheer her up, she said yes. I went over, gave her chocolate and a teddy bear. I stayed over, we would stay up at night talking lovingly. Everything is going amazing. At this point in time, I haven't heard her say I love you in months.
Exam season rolls around, I finish my exams 4 days before her, so she asked if I could come over until she finished hers. I went over, and we cuddle together every night, just hang out, talk, etc. I'm a heavy sleeper, and fall asleep really easily. We were laying in bed and talking, and I was exhausted so I was falling asleep. To keep me awake, she was essentially punching my arm and telling me to stay awake so we could talk. The next day, randomly she was like babee i love you, I looked at her and I was like I love you too, and then she froze up again, and just said oh uhm, i didnt mean it, i didn't mean it.
So, fast forward to the end of her exam, we packed up her room, I found things she made for me, and I just sat in the corner and cried about how horrible I was to her, she comforted me and told everything would be okay. I headed home, everything was still great. We decided this summer, since we're both working fulltime we're gonna have a date night every week (we're still broken up at this point). Our first date night (yesterday), we had a fight near the end, but I managed to cheer her up, and everything was great again. Our anniversiy would be today, so we were talking on skype last night, and I told her I was exhausted. I accidentally fell asleep in my chair at 11:30pm, I woke up at 12:15am, and saw she was offline on skype, and sent me a long text about how she hates me, and feels that I always go back to my old habits, and I'm just putting on an act to win her back. She was being cold and distant, but I managed to calm her down, and put her to bed. I could barely sleep, and I'm just sitting here typing this up, she's probably asleep right now. I really don't know what to do. I really want her back, and I'm willing to go the extra mile for it. I want to help build our trust up again, and let her know that I'll never treat her the way I used to. I feel like I'm on a loop, we always get better, her fear grips her, she gets really mad about something, she hates me, I comfort her, and we start to get better again. I want her to be happy, and I know that she still loves me because of how she is around me, but I want to help her get over her fear. How can I help her get over her fear?
Also, because of where I grew up, I get really bothered by things like bikinis. I feel that it shows too much skin. I know it's not normal, and want to change that about myself. Any help?
