Tl,dr: My NP did not respect me or my needs in our relationship before we had a crisis two months ago and I almost broke up with him. Now he is working towards change and our relationship is feeling better and stronger, but I can’t let go of the past, even though I want to. How can I change my mind and accept the new reality without resentment?

How we got there:
We have been together 1 ½ years by now and have been polyamorous from the start. I have lived polyam for 7 years before him and he was always mono but interested in polyamory.

2 months ago he had his first polyam experience and lied to me, broke every single relationship agreement that we had, hid things on purpose, hurt me with his callous and ruthless behavior and triggered a major mental health crisis for me, for which I am still in therapy. You can find my post about this in my profile, as it is too long to reiterate it all again.

After we had a mediated talk about what went wrong and what I needed from him to keep this relationship going for the future we made agreements for continuing our relationship, because he said he loves me and really wants to be with me as his life partner. But he lied again and broke the new agreements, which is when I gave him an ultimatum that I am not proud of: close the relationship and do the f*cking work with me for our relationship and for having healthy polyamorous relationships again in the future, or be with her exclusively with me going my way for my sanity. He chose to be with me and work on the relationship. It does not feel good that I had to do this and for the future I told him if things like that would ever happen again, that there would be no ultimatums anymore, just me leaving the relationship.

Before the crisis:
Our relationship was lacking in many different aspects for me. He never wanted to spend quality time with me, we never did fun date things, he never wanted to do fun things with me and my friend circle (which became his friends also), he left me alone with all household duties (I have severe back pain and doing a single laundry takes me a few days with a lot of pauses for rest), he did not show me a lot of physical affection outside of sex (which he also rejected me for quite often) or verbal affection aside from a quick “I love you” sometimes. He rejected me often when I asked for quality time or made suggestions for dates. He was happiest when we were just sitting in one room together, doing our own stuff, rarely interacting.

We became a couple at a time where I was at a low point and just out of an abusive relationship, so in the beginning I thought that at least he is with me and tells me he loves me and does not verbally abuse me and that makes a healthy relationship. He was also fresh out of an abusive relationship where he experienced verbal and physical violence. So in the beginning I did not think much about it, I thought we both needed some time to heal individually and therapy and we could experience a full, healthy relationship together.

I often raised my concerns, that my needs weren't met, that I needed him to step up with household duties, that I needed more affection and more quality time. I was always willing to find the middle ground between our needs, but most talks around these things were blocked by him not wanting to discuss anything or not seeing the problems. We had a lot of yelling arguments, which I also am to blame for, but even when he saw me yelling and crying he never thought to himself that there needed to be a change.

After the crisis:
I again made my points clear: spend more quality time with me (a big out-of-home date once a month, one in-home date a week, one weekend per month of us-time), more support with specific household duties, a monthly RADAR-check-in, daily\* cuddles and hand holding, daily\* “I love you”s without me telling you first, compliments that I don’t have to beg for, showing me desire before sex and not just waving the dick around and expect me to jump on it like I have never seen one, communication around time management, doing the relationship menu with me and finding agreements that are kept unless talked about before, doing the work about how healthy relationships and polyamory work, looking for therapy for himself.
These were all things that I had to beg and cry for in our arguments before the crisis happened which he never really reacted to in any way.

\daily meaning on average, if he is not feeling well he does not have to of course, but in the past we went for weeks without even a quick kiss because it just didn’t occur to him*

He made all those changes. He agreed to everything I said and since then he kept it all. He is attentive to my needs, he learns how to cook to cook me dinner, he keeps the place tidy since he is suddenly unemployed now and I am in therapy everyday, he dates me, he is affectionate and cuddly, the sex has become out of this world good, he does things with his friends and enjoys spending quality time with me and them, we do the check-ins and the theory talk about opening up again, he asks me about my feelings and has begun to slowly share more and more of his feelings and thoughts with me.

I was taken by surprise of how well these things are now between us and how effortless they seem to be for him. But I am resentful. I resent him for not listening to me earlier in our relationship, I resent him for ignoring my needs for so long when it has proven to be easy to fulfill them.

I asked him why the things come so easy for him right now and before it was like running into a wall for me and he said two things that have hurt me a lot:

1. He thought our relationship before the crisis was perfect. He felt comfortable and while he did see me cry a lot or be angry at him for things he did not do, he was fine with it. In his eyes our relationship was the healthiest and nicest he ever had. For him the relationship never lacked anything and all his needs were fulfilled. He said he could only change things for our relationship when he realised the need for that. Before the crisis he did not realise the need, he thought I was just nagging him. [edit: wording] Because why would he change things or do work if he just doesn’t see the need? But now he has seen the need for change through the ultimatum and the possibility of me leaving him, so now he wants to work on himself to be a better partner to me.
2. In all relationships he had before me he never wanted to date or do things together with his girlfriends. It was just how he was, he does not know why, and it is the reason why most of those relationships ended. Through me he noticed that he is the problem, that it was never the fault of his ex-girlfriends or my fault. He said he never thought it would be fun to spend time with me, but it is fun for him now so he can give me these things freely and enthusiastically. This hurt me big time, because why be in a relationship with someone and talk about love and a future and live together, when you don’t enjoy the company of your partner?

I just feel… weird about it. I can’t let go. My anxiety and hurt is still in my mind a lot and I am doing my best to work on it in therapy, I am exhausted to the core from doing the internal work on accepting him now and not trying to see the catastrophes that could happen, but I still have these thoughts on a daily basis.

What if he starts working again and forgets me again? What if he sees someone else and breaks all agreements again? What if he is just doing it for now to keep me, but will stop once he thinks it is safe again to do so? Why did he see me cry about my unhappiness in our relationship so often and not start the change sooner? Am I an idiot for giving him the second chance? Should I have walked away? What if he is secretly not enthusiastic about it and thinks of it as chores he has to do, since he is very good in keeping things secret and lying to me?

I am on week 3 in my 6 week therapy and I still haven’t made any progress I feel. And whenever my anxiety gets the best of me and I ask for reassurance he becomes grumpy and feels like all the work he does is for nothing because I still don’t trust him again.

Do you have any advice for me on how to give him grace and how to trust him again?