My Ex-Boyfriend wants to Reconnect with me as a friend, How to handle this situation?

Hello everyone, to give you all the best context I've tried to type out details as much as I can and I'm sorry if it's too long. I genuinely feel that it'd be really great to hear from all of you.

Me 'F 24' and My Ex 'M 24' met at college in the year 2018, our freshmen year and he initiated all kinds of little conversations. We were the best of friends and after a year, we did get attracted to each other. I finally decided to open up on my feelings.

To my surprise, he did admit and we fell in love, and life did go pretty easy with usual highs and lows that's common among relationships.

But before we got into the relationship from both ends, we kinda made a pact for our future discussing on our long term goals, ambitions, and finance. As we were both coming from a struggling financial background and equally had the weights of providing to our family once we start earning, we wanted to cave in on what's the best. Though it might sound too early to discuss these topics, we felt it was a bigger part of understanding each other.

And yes, things were pretty great, until I found all the lies he had fed me to pursue him from his friend. I didn't take much a toll on it and ensured to confront him in a way as polite as possible, and he did admit that he lied because he knew that I always loved bikes and long drives.

It did hurt, but I thought of letting it go, and he did promise he'll for sure change his lies to reality, bur soon i realized that I was only going unravel more lies as the days passed.

After a year he did genuinely try to change, and broke the shell of his strict parents and backward mindset.

But after this is where the story gets interesting. He started failing in a couple of subjects during college and was struggling to find a job during placements.

I tried my best to be supportive, but somewhere I did sense he was never that ambitious about what he wanted to be, and that did make me withdraw from most of the help I was doing.

Well, as a last resort since he's from an electrical background and I was from a CS major, I helped crack an interview in a reputed MNC, and things were finally starting to fall in place.

It has already been 3 years since we were committed by then. It was all a happy journey, yes there were fights, but only mostly towards his lack of seriousness towards his future since he'd chosen a totally different career path.

Eventually, he did join with his parents who had retired from their jobs and decided to start a wholesale distribution business. I did congratulate him for finally getting back on track, and I saw the same zeal I had seen in his eyes 4 years back and was genuinely happy for him.

I did discuss the business model to understand more on his venture and was taken aback on his pricing model and credit loops. I did my research and warned him on the potential harm it could cause and suggested better alternatives. But he brushed it off and told that his parents knew better, so I eventually moved away from the topic.

The first year went pretty well, and the business started to hit its peak, but within the next 6 months, it all crashed down, piling up a huge debt on him as I predicted. I didn't wanna brag, but during the initial days, I ensured that I support him as much as possible financially and emotionally, but I felt he was genuinely withdrawn from the relationship. I tried my best, but nothing was helpful.

And slowly, my relationship also fell apart. He started to avoid me, didn't even bother to check on me when his friends were body-shaming me as a joke and told how incompatible we were with each other and many such incidents happened.

And it didn't stop here. He also started mentioning a few bizarre statements like I accepted a fat person like you for your character and so on.

As the days went on, I grew insecure more and more and started feeling worthless. I didn't know what to do and partially shut myself down from all my other friends. Somewhere, this was the same guy who fought against my biggest bully in class and made him shut his mouth to even speak about me, and now he himself is has started to bully me and broke me to pieces.

I was finding it hard to accept the reality day by day. Suddenly, he disappeared for 5 days on a trip with his colleagues, and as I mentioned earlier, I was already emotionally weak at this time and it its peak. When I spoke to him after all the trauma, he just said he wanted me to grow up instead of expecting him to always be there.

And eventually, I was broken and was ready to break up with him, and when I finally confessed, he was taken aback and said that he wanted me in his life and I'm the best person who could understand him.

Well, he didn't stop there. He took consistent efforts for a whole month until I finally caved in. Everything seemed fine except for me. I was never my old self. I left people to walk over me without hesitation and grew silent day after day, and my insecurity was at all-time high.

He genuinely didn't care and only connected with me whenever he wanted physical intimacy, and he finally called off the relationship after 4 such cycles of using me, my money, and my time completely blaming me, telling the following reasons:

All my ambitious talks made him term me money-minded (I earn twice his salary and this was stupidity)
A girl like me will never be able to satisfy his family because I don't know to cook
We are from different caste and his family will be ashamed of this marriage
I'm always pessimistic whenever he brings a happy news to me (I call it practical reality check, and I have no clue on his side though)
He is not financially fit to take care of my needs
He felt that I'm too clingy (I don't understand if just expecting a voice note before he goes to sleep on a busy day means clingy)
I felt a huge rush of disrespect on me. Why did I let him do all those things to me? Why was I standing in front of the mirror like a wall of shame? I genuinely started questioning my existence.

After a certain period of time I felt the urge to question him a couple of months back and surprisingly he didn't have any answers after only my 30% of questions were ober6 I felt like he had lost the game of arguing and finally apologised I knew it wasn't a sincere one so I kept asking the remaining questions he wasn't able to answer and walked away, i sent him a huge text of all my questions explaining the pain i went through due to his fake promises and absence and I ghosted him and blocked him on all socials except for phone call.

But as days moved on, I did have people dependent on me, and I realized I should at least rebuild myself for their sake and should do everything possible to bounce back from the grievance.

And that's how tragic my breakup was. It's been 4 months, and I've started doing pretty well. Yes, it was hard, and I could never forget the 6 years of journey with him, along with which I can never forgive him for the way he treated me for a whole year after his financials dipped.

If anyone of you is still reading this, thank you for coming this far.

Well, it was a hard call as he was also my best friend, tbh, a person whom I could speak about anything anytime without being judged. It was so painful to see it all shatter, but I'm over it even if I miss him and genuinely focusing on my career has played a great role in bringing me out of this mess and stayed without contacting him for a month.

All of a sudden, I got a call from him yesterday telling that our friends are planning for a trip (which I already knew and rejected) and told me that he won't be going if I don't come.

It sounded so weird and bizarre, and I asked him what makes him think I'd agree to go on a trip with him.

He sounded taken aback and sat down to explain how much he missed me as a FRIEND and genuinely wanted me back as a well-wisher in his life.

Well, I did miss him for the same reason, but I didn't confess it to him. I just told him that I'd never forgive him for what he did to me and I'll never want him back in my life after seeing his true colors when put under pressure.

He once again called me today. We discussed a few things. It was a normal life update from both our ends, and I genuinely started to feel like I miss my friend.

But I also find myself questioning on what would be the boundaries, and I'm not fully over him as my BF and I cannot forgive him for what he did to me.

I'm puzzled. I don't want him in my life, but still want him. I have no clue on what to do?

During our conversations, the blissful memories did come across, and I felt like it'll be nice to recreate all those wonderful days together once again, but I know I can never do it with the pain he caused me during the last year.

I've tried so hard to rebuild myself away from him, but his entry back into my life is making things more difficult.

I find it crazy that even after all this, one part of me thinks I should bring him back to my life as a friend and probably more than a friend someday. And another part of me feels the more I get drawn to him, the more I'm gonna hate myself and shatter my 4 months of hard work to get out of his presence and become independent without the need of any emotional support would shatter me down back to level one.

Thank you so much for reading through my entire story and any advice on how to handle this situation would really be helpful.