Dr. Shernoff,

I'll try to be brief, I ended a relationship a little over a year ago that was codependent and even more so after my partners AIDs diagnosis. My partner was contantly lieing, manipulative, deceptive, selfish, evasive and downright mean. We were very isolated because he didn't want friends. These issues existed before illness and even more so after his recovery. Now I'm happy with an active social life and have regained my self esteem and security I lost during that to long bizarre interaction. Now I really cared about him and after all this time he's telling me he's changed and wants to try again. It's been a long time and I'm hesitant, do people just change like that or are we pretty much the same people with the same behaviours all the time? I haven't really changed other than being more cautious. He says he can compromise and communicate now, but it looks from what I can see he's living the way he always did, just without me around.

Thanks so much

It sounds like you already have your answer. You must trust your own impressions and intuitions. If he was really as much of a lying and manipulative person as you describe, then how do you know that he is not just feeding you a line to try and get you back into the exact same situation? Proceed very cautiously, if at all.

Michael Shernoff, MSW