Are we too different?

Hi Reddit, it’s been a while and I need some advice. This ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated, so thank you for reading if you do.

TL;DR: I love my boyfriend but we have very different views on life. Not sure whether to stay or to break it off.

I’ve been dating my (21F) boyfriend (23M) for 7 months, we’ve known each other for about 11-12 months all together. He is a great boyfriend and I really do love him. He quickly became my best friend and he always has my back. He’s supportive, patient, kind. He’s the first man in my life to not use me and treat me like shit. He’s incredibly smart and he’s constantly making me laugh. He shows up when he says he’s going to, he never flakes on me. He knows me better than anyone else in the world. He is genuinely my best friend.

He’s a cop, who works the night shift so he has a pretty bad schedule. On top of that, we live about an hour and a half from each other. We try to make it work the best we can, usually seeing each other every other weekend and sometimes during the week if our schedules allow. He spends a lot of our time together asleep, which I understand. I don’t mind, but I have expressed to him that we need to do more and we have started going out on the weekends, which I’ve really enjoyed.

I’m his first official girlfriend (he’s gone on dates and slept with other women, but I’m the first one that he wanted to commit to) and there are certain things that I need that I don’t get from him. I’m someone that needs verbal validation, and he has a really hard time with that. I’ve told him a few times how I felt and he does try but its usually stuff like “you’re really cool” which is nice, sure. But sometimes I do need more than that and I’ve tried to tell him that and it’s just a never ending cycle. We also have very different views on life. I’m a “live in the now” kind of person, I like to travel, camp and just live my life. He’s more of a “prepare for the future” kind of person and he said he wants to retire early and then live. That’s something I don’t really understand, but to each their own. He’s planning on buying a house next year, but there hasn’t been any mention of us having a future together/moving in together eventually and that… kind of bothers me? I don’t think we should write it in stone, but our longterm future has never been mentioned. There are a couple other things that bother me, like how his room is pretty messy. It kind of makes me anxious when I’m there because I like having an organized room. I’ve offered to help him organize it and stuff but he gets a little upset when I mention it so I dropped that a while ago. I get that on his days off, he doesn’t want to do anything but relax because his job takes a lot out of him. But I just wish he’d clean his room lol. I smoke weed, but I can’t smoke it with him so that kind of sucks. He doesn’t care that I do, but he can’t (of course).

I guess I’m just a little lost and confused. Over the past month or so, I’ve been going back and forth in my head. Sometimes, I think that our differences are too big and that we should break up so we can find someone that fits our needs better. But the rest of the time, I’m reminded why I want to be with him. I don’t know if these feelings are normal or not, or if I’m overthinking things. This is the first healthy relationship I’ve been in, so I don’t really know what is normal. I dont know how I could break up with him and hurt him when I care about and love him as much as I do. He hasn’t done anything wrong, which is why this is so hard for me. In my past relationships, they’ve given me reasons to hate them. Hating someone is a lot easier than actively loving them and leaving.