AIO for wanting to leave my boyfriend after finding out from his ex that he was abusive towards her during college

Sorry for all the screenshots and for the insane length of this post. There were a lot of messages back and forth and I didn’t want to cut anything out. I also want to put in the full context of everything that happened. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read it all and also sorry if there is any issues with formatting. I made this account primarily just to lurk and this is my first time posting.

Monday night, my boyfriend “John” (29M) of a little under two years and I (24F) went out to a local bar in our city for a date night. While we were there, something really intense happened that I’m still reeling from. I think I’m just looking for a little bit of outside perspective because I’m having trouble trusting my gut--which is ultimately telling me to leave. 

I’m not a huge drinker and it was a week night, so I hadn’t had any alcohol. John was drinking a moderate amount, nothing crazy. This particular bar is a few blocks from an ice cream spot we both like. We were getting ready to head out, and because I wasn’t planning on having any, he said he would go by himself so that I could wait inside in the warmth for him.

Almost immediately after he left, a woman who I didn’t recognize “Jane” approached me. She looked really, really anxious. I remember immediately asking her if everything was okay because she honestly seemed scared and my first thought was that someone at the bar was harassing her or something. She asked if she could sit down and I said yes. I’ll detail what she told me here. I’ve had a few conversations with her since then, so some of the stuff below may not have been said that particular night, but it’s hard for me to remember exactly what was said when. Everything is kind of jumbled in my head at this point, but here is the gist of everything she told me:

• She used to date John
• They met in college when he was TAing for one of her classes. He pursued her and they dated for around 3 years
• He was very controlling throughout the relationship, jealous and emotionally manipulative/abusive. She also felt very pressured in general when it came to sex
• Over time he made her cut out a majority of her friends for being “bad influences”
• Every time she would try to break up with him, he would promise to change/get better for a while/etc
• During one particularly bad fight, he threw and broke her phone and then physically barred the door to keep her from leaving. After that she ended it for good
• He kept trying to get back together until she threatened to take all the texts/videos/voice recordings of their fights to the school, at which point he stopped contacting her
• Some time later, one of her friends said she saw his profile on a dating app and it brought everything back up for her. She felt like she needed to warn other women about him 
• Her college had a FB page that was women only and kind of similar to those “are we dating the same guy” pages. She posted about him there and a handful of women responded with their own experiences, none of them good. Some timelines even overlapped
• Fast forward a couple years, and she hadn’t spoken to or really seen him since/had done her best to move on. Monday night she happened to be out around the same time as us and recognized him when she saw us together
• She said she froze and once again felt everything come flooding back. She wanted to tell me about what had happened to her in case he hadn't changed. She went into the bar after us, hoping I’d go into the restroom or something at some point so she could talk to me. When John left she took her chance

Obviously, I was completely stunned and shocked by all of this. I am still so shocked. I don't think I was able to say more than a few words the entire time she was talking and my stomach was in knots the whole time. She seemed so genuinely rattled and afraid and it was so scary because my inclination was to believe her, and yet I just couldn’t square the person she was talking about with who I knew John to be. It felt like she was talking about someone else entirely. I have always felt safe with him. He has never once pressured me to do anything I’m uncomfortable with and has always been attentive and genuinely kind. Of course I know this doesn’t mean that he couldn’t have been abusive to others in the past, but it was just genuinely frying my brain at the time. 

I think she could tell that I was really confused, overwhelmed and in shock and she she acknowledged that he might have changed since the time they dated, but that when she saw us walking together, she instantly saw her younger self in me and felt she couldn’t not tell me. She said she wished someone had warned her about him all those years ago and that if I was seeing any red flags at all that I should just run. That she was genuinely fucked up for a long time after what he put her through. She also told me she could send me proof of everything and gave me her number. 

It was shortly after this that John got back, and everything went downhill pretty fast. I could tell that he recognized her. He looked super shocked when he saw her. I was honestly still buffering from everything Jane had told me so I couldn't even say anything. We were all just kind of staring at each other and then it was like John's shock suddenly transformed into anger. He grabbed my arm and pulled me up and was like we’re leaving right now. I was telling him to wait and tried to pull my arm from his, but he just kept tightening his grip and saying no we're leaving right now and that he'd explain everything while starting to pull me towards the door. Jane got up and took my other arm and said "leave her alone can't you see you're hurting her? you clearly haven’t changed at all" or something to that effect. John went absolutely nuclear after that. I’m not kidding when I say I have never seen such anger from him before. It was terrifying. He turned on her and was practically screaming at her and pointing his finger in her face. I’ve never EVER seen him like this. Like I said he is usually so soft-spoken and sweet. He has never done anything in the past to make me feel afraid for even a second. This was like watching a stranger. 

He kept yelling at Jane to stay away from me and to leave us alone. He was like this girl is crazy, she’s been trying to fuck me over for years. He was advancing towards her really aggressively and I was trying to pull him back. Jane just kept backing up and saying don’t touch me over and over again. She was yelling back at him, but was physically shaking the whole time. At this point, a guy from a nearby table stepped in front of John and told him to calm down. John told him to stay out of it, and when the guy wouldn’t move, he started cursing at him and getting in his face. The guy put his hands out and pushed John back a little and then John full out swung his fist and clipped him in the face. It happened so suddenly and I was completely stunned. A couple bartenders came over as well as a bouncer, and John grabbed me again to pull me out. I kept telling him to stop and that he was hurting me, but he just yanked me outside. One of the bartenders followed to see if I was okay and it’s like John suddenly snapped out of it. He kept apologizing to me and saying I’m sorry and please come with me and I’ll explain everything. I was really, really shaken up, but I left with him.

Afterwards, I asked him repeatedly to explain what the hell had just happened but he would barely say anything. He just seemed so wound up and it was like he was hyper-fixated on figuring out what Jane had told me. He did say that they dated in college and that when they broke up, she repeatedly tried to "destroy his life", but he wouldn't say much else. He kept calling her crazy and saying that he couldn't believe this was happening and I shouldn't believe anything she said. I eventually told him that I needed some time by myself and that he should head back first. He didn't want to, but I insisted and just left. I went to stay with my friend for the night because I literally could not think and I was still trying to process everything. The above text conversation happened after that.

Since Monday, I've talked to Jane again twice. She was incredibly shaken by that night (understandably so imo) but told me that she's glad she trusted her gut and warned me. She said that what I choose to do moving forward is ultimately my decision, but that the type of anger I saw at the bar was the same kind she always felt simmering right below the surface when they dated. It made her fearful of ever expressing how she truly felt to him. She asked if I wanted screenshots of texts from the time they dated and I said yes. If everything is real (and I have 0 reason to believe it's not), then he said some really, really horrible things to her back then. Calling her names, belittling her and accusing her of cheating on him seemingly out of the blue. Conversations where it did feel like he was being manipulative or where he was extremely dismissive. A lot of guilt tripping surrounding intimacy and sex. Those texts were the hardest to read. I just could not believe it was him saying all of that stuff.

I talked to John about all of this, and I think his initial reaction is what I can't get out of my head. I didn't mention the texts at first, just told him what she told me at the bar. He flat out denied everything and said that she was just bitter because of how things ended. He said that the breakup was mutual, but that he initiated it. He did admit that things had been toxic at times, but felt like it was mostly childish arguments and equally so both ways. He made it seem like her following us into the bar was first and foremost a residual jealousy/anger thing on her part, which didn't at all seem to be the whole picture from what I'd seen/heard. When I brought up the texts, he kind of shutdown and the whole conversation shifted into why I was contacting her and why I would even listen to anything she was saying. He was very hurt and angry that I took her number and kept saying I had no trust in him. Unfortunately that convo did not go anywhere productive and I was pretty much ready to end it at that point as I felt like he wasn't being honest with me at all.

I think he could tell where my head was, and last night he asked to talk again. He said that it was really hard to process everything that was going on, and that the situation with Jane was just a really raw spot for him and made him instantly defensive. He admitted that he was really immature when he was in college, that he had a lot of insecurities and may have taken it out on her. He regrets a lot of what he did and how he acted. He said he felt ashamed reading back some of those messages and didn't want me to view him differently. However, he categorically denied being abusive and said that they both just brought out the worst in each other. He said that she would often throw things at him out of anger and that she had cherry picked a lot of those messages. That the night he broke her phone, she had thrown it at his head first. In anger, he picked it up and threw it at the wall and it broke. He felt really bad after and gave her money for a new phone. He denied ever blocking her from leaving though saying he doesn't remember that at all. He said that after they broke up, Jane tried contacting his grad program director to get him thrown out. She reached out to his family as well. He feels like it was just a really toxic relationship on both sides, but that she had been hellbent on ruining his life for some time after, even though he just wanted to be left alone. He also said that he never once pressured her sexually and was particularly firm and angry about this point. I told him that a lot of the text messages read like he was trying to guilt/push her into having sex and/or blaming her for the lack of it. He said that he can see how it comes across that way, but he at the time was trying to genuinely express sadness/frustration at their lack of intimacy. He said he would never ever go about expressing those feelings the same way now, but he was just immature back then and there was no malicious intent behind it. He also said he didn't know anything about the FB group, and implied that she could have made it up completely. Unfortunately it no longer exists so I wasn't able to look at the post where Jane said other woman corroborated her experience.

Ultimately, John told me that even though he doesn't agree fully with Jane's characterization of him and still believes that she is lying and/or exaggerating a lot of what happened in their relationship, he does acknowledge he made mistakes back then but has changed and grown for the better since college. He kept asking me if I've ever once felt unsafe with him, or ever felt like he was abusive or demeaning in any way. I said no, and I meant it. But I honestly cannot shake how explosive his anger was that night. It was so scary, and even though it wasn't directed at me, seeing him like that made me wonder if I was peering into my future. I don't know if that's an unfair thing to say or feel. Jane's fear that night was real though, and also the stories she told me seemed genuine. I feel like she had absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose by following us into the bar and telling me what she did. She drudged up a really painful past and I feel thankful, but also very confused and guilty as well.

I honestly would and do characterize a lot of John's past actions as abusive, but he is very fixated on the use of that word and shuts down if I even hint at it. The thing is, it's very hard for me to move forward if he can't even acknowledge fully what he did in the past. It feels to me like there is a lot of downplaying of how he used to be. I also feel like he wasn't fully forthcoming about his behavior back then until he knew I had proof. It sometimes also feels like he is more sad that I saw those messages, than the fact that the messages exist in the first place if that makes sense. I can't be sure of this of course. And he's still very, very angry with Jane. Even now, I hear all of the suppressed anger when she is mentioned. I also found out from him that the “other relationship she ruined” as per his texts was the one with his younger sister. Jane told her a couple weeks after the phone incident/breakup happened and John’s sister very swiftly cut him out in huge ways. I’ve known for a while that his relationship with his sister was strained and it’s been a huge source of sadness for him, but he never wanted to talk about it so I never knew the reason why. 

He has apologized everyday multiple times for how he acted that night, but in the end he feels like I am still trusting the words of a stranger over him. He says his actions over the past 2 years should be proof enough that he isn't who Jane is trying to paint him out to be. It's just hard to ignore some of the hard evidence in front of me. He also feels like his drinking played a role in his intense reaction that night. He keeps asking me if I'm going to leave him over this, and I don't know how to respond. I feel so lost, and at times so, so angry that he could ever treat anyone like that ever. And then I feel guilty for my anger.

Honestly, just writing everything out like this already feels like it's helped. Thank you to anyone who took the time to read it all, or even portions of it. AIO? Everything feels so complicated and though my gut is telling me to break up, I can't help but also feel these huge waves of enormous guilt and sadness at the same time. It's like my brain is splitting in two and trying to reconcile this person I've loved so deeply for 2 years, with a man that somehow now feels like a partial stranger. I'm not sure if that makes sense either. I can see how hurt he is from all of this and my heart really just wants to believe in him and the 2 years we've had together. I want to believe that everything was due to immaturity or misunderstandings, but I just can't. I'm hurting for Jane and for myself and for him and I don't know how all of these emotions are existing in me at once. If anyone told me I'd be here typing this out even a week ago, I would have called them crazy. Thanks again for listening and I am looking for genuine honesty, no matter which side you land on, and even if it's harsh.