Me (19F) and my boyfriend (20M) are having a really sucky relationship these past few days. He is my first actual partner, I’m his third but his previous partners only lasted about 1-2 months (teenage dating). We have been together for a year and a month now and I can say it has been an amazing relationship. He’s really smart and gives out really good advice and I learn a lot from him. He also is really good at comforting me for the most part. Whenever I’m sad and reach out to him he mostly gives good advice. However, I’m a really anxious person and I doubt or question a lot of aspects in our relationship. I think my anxiety is better than a few months ago, but it’s still really prevalent. He doesn’t like it (as expected) but tries his best to support me and help me understand the reality of situations. He’s really patient with me.
Here’s the deal: in the beginning of the relationship we were really, really close and affectionate. He would compliment me a lot, send a lot of cute texts during the day, physical contact was always passionate, he gave me a lot of attention, never ran out of topics to talk about, etc. I don’t have a lot of experience with relationships but I am aware this is called the honeymoon phase and that it fades away after a while. And it did. It bothered me for a bit because I’m a really affectionate person but we work through it. Although now I feel like recently he doesn’t put in an effort.
He never compliments me anymore. I have told him about it, says he doesn’t really notice that stuff with anyone (can confirm it’s true, he has ADHD). He almost never asks me to do stuff with him. Says he forgets. We send good morning and good night texts to each other everyday. He almost always forgets the good morning text but never the good night one. But sometimes he reads my texts and justs doesn’t reply or just doesn’t read them at all. He hugs me and kisses me everytime we see eachother (we see eachother everyday but only in public and for 2-3h because of non coinciding schedules, and we don’t live together) and he tells me he loves me at least once everyday, but yesterday we went out together just to talk for a while and he barely touched me, only as a greeting and a goodbye. I feel like we barely talk about anime and series and games (mutual interests) but we do talk about all the new experiences I have been having in my life since I moved schools, and he asked a lot about that stuff when it happened. He seemed really interested in knowing my opinion.
I just miss it when he would ask about my day, hug me and kiss me out of the blue, send me texts saying he is thinking about me, have things to talk about, etc. For the past three days we have been talking about it and he says he doesn’t ask for anything of me because he loves me and that’s all he needs to be in a relationship, but feels like I always have something about him that bothers me. He says that at times I feel really desperate for his attention or that I only like him when he kisses or hugs me, and he suggests the possibility that I’m emotionally dependent on him. He says that if that’s the case he’ll try to help me fix it because he doesn’t want to give up on us. I don’t feel like he’s using me or doesn’t really like me or anything like that, but I just miss the affection. It’s true that I cry or get really sad if sometimes he isn’t as affectionate as I would like and I don’t know if it’s normal. Why is he not that affectionate anymore? I really love him a lot and didn’t want to head down the path of breaking up. I just feel very confused and would greatly appreciate some advice and perspectives.
TLDR: Boyfriend says loves me everyday, is caring and takes interest in me, but I feel like the relationship is dying out and I feel very depressed by it. He suggests I might me emotionally dependent on this relationship and I don’t know what to do.