my ex confuses me

I’ve dated my ex on and off for a year and a half. we’ve been through everything together. I can’t say we treated eachother the way we should have, but I do know we loved eachother. I ended up breaking up with him on little situations and he would always come back. I got so attached and I was so afraid of getting hurt. so when I saw a possible chance of him hurting me my solution would be to end it. Finally he ended up breaking up with me, and I was completely heartbroken. He said his reason for breaking up with me is because all we do is argue and he said he was thinking bad things, and he had to break up with me so he wouldn’t do anything bad to hurt me. I told him it was fine and that we need to stop contact with eachother for awhile. He said he won’t ever stop calling me. He calls non stop throughout the day and he says he doesn’t want to loose me as a friend because he doesn’t want me out of his life. When we do hang out he acts like we’re still dating. He’ll tell me I don’t mean much to him anymore, but then some days he’s on the phone crying to me saying he’s trying to get over me but he can’t. I’m so confused and I’m sick of sitting here wondering why he’s trying to meet up with other girls but at the same time saying he can’t get over me. If he loved me so much why would he want anything better?