My (26F) insecurity is ruining my relationship with my BF (28M)

Where to start. I lurk on the sub a lot but this is my first time posting, so sorry if there are any issues with my post. Also, English is not my native language. I’ll try to keep this as brief as possible but I think there’s a lot of background I have to lay out. I know my issue will sound like I need to cosult a therapist, not reddit, but I can’t afford that right now so I am hoping you can provide me with some solutions or perspective until I can sort that out. If nobody replies, at least I got a chance to vent.

I have severe relational trauma from my childhood resulting in bad fear of abandonment, low self esteem, anxious attachement style, the whole deal. I realise this but I still cannot control my irrational thoughts when they do come.

I have a wonderful boyfriend (28M) whom I love very much and I think we’re really great for each other. We’ve known eachother for years, only been together for one but I’ve had several long-term relationships before and this one is a whole new level. I don’t think I’ll meet anybody with whom I am as compatible in terms of personality, values and interests as him. Combined with my relational trauma and anxiety, I am terrified of losing him whenever things are less than perfect. Haha. Ugh, that nervous-laugh “haha”.

What I’m about to describe happens on average every other week or so and can stretch for a few days. We only see each other on weekends because we live in different cities so on a bad month this can ruin 50% of the time we spend together.

Here’s how it usually plays out. Between our visits, I’ll message my boyfriend about whatever, and then he likely won’t reply on the same day, no matter how small it is. He used to take up to 3 days to read and reply to a small message, now it’s usually gone down to up to one, because I’ve expressed that this makes me feel low-priority and unloved. BF doesn’t generally like texting and is very busy recently, frequently working long overime hours, so I never flood him with texts and don’t expect him to have text convos with me. I don’t however think asking to check your phone and give me a short reply at the end of the day is unreasonable and requires a lot of effort on his part. He thinks I am expecting too much of him.

This then usually snowballs into a poopstorm. When we see eachother on the Weekend with me feeling I’ve been neglected, the atmosphere really sucks. I try to rationalize it all in my head and I know I really don’t have any ground to feel neglected and think his love for me is gone and our relationship is in jeopardy, but my emotions are off the charts. I’m very distressed and usually on the verge of tears (inb4, I was on Zoloft+Dogmatil for a whole year and sadly it wasn’t helpful in managing this in any way) and act like I’m walking on eggshells which surely must feel weird for him. My being on the verge of tears makes my issue really hard to bring up too. When I act like this he also begins to act distant himself. because he doesn’t ilke the way I behave. He feels I’m giving him the silent treatment he doesn’t deserve etc, creating a feedback loop in which none of us will reach out to the other. This is especially problematic because even if this lasts for only one day, that’s half of our total time we’ll see each other that week and just creates a really bad statistic for our time together.

What I’ve tried to do so far over the months is explain to him my relational trauma and resulting fear of abandonment, I asked him to not worry about my sulking, because it’s me figting with my head, and there is not an issue with him. I also expressed that it’d be helpful if he was more affirming and warm to me instead of isolating me further by his own distant behavior (albeit triggered by mine). When we discuss this I often cry my eyes out (duh) which he perceives as manipulative. I have numerous times asked him to listen to my words that come from my brain, not my emotional reactions that come from my endocrine system, but he can’t seem to get past that. He sees me sulking and he says that makes him feel like I am giving him the silent treatment on purpose to punish him. I think that’s avoidant attachement and also he had in the past briefly mentioned an emotionally-manipulative EX GF, so I do believe he’s not interpreting my actions so poorly out of malice or spite, but rather probably his own relational trauma.

We’ve had many conversations about this and we both seem to understand the underlying issues, but when it happens, we both shut down and shut the other one out, to protect our fragile emotions. For example, once I suggested him showing me some love when I’m sulking may reassure me and help me get out of the low. One time he gave me a hug despite me acting my stupid way, but I didn’t return it immediately, which made him feel rejected and stop trying. Then I gathered up courage and asked him if we could watch a movie together, but he said he was busy, which made me feel rejected and so on. This usually builds up to a fight and we tell eachother what we’ve felt hurt about and try to come up with some counter-measures, but still in a week or three this happens all over again. I just don’t know how to close this stupid loop.

Despite how immature this sounds, other than these incidents, we really love each other and are in sync about most things most of the time, we’re just two relationally dyfunctional people but this is something we can work on and I really want to put in the work for this relationship to work. Since therapy isn’t an option, maybe you can suggest something we can do to improve communication, set better boundaries, manage irrational emotions, maybe some practical ideas on what to do to close the loop once it starts. Anything will be appreciated.