I am 26 (f) and my boyfriend is 29 (m). We are coming up to our 1 year anniversary and I have some mixed feelings. Personality wise he is perfect, he is outgoing, funny, understanding etc, we have so many laughs and jokes together, we enjoy the same kind of nights outs, restaurants, films and so being together is always a good time. We have a fantastic sex life and he can be very cuddly and physically affectionate. He has said I’m the first girl he’s ever loved and he can be very sweet when he’s drunk but usually isn’t too mushy when he’s sober. We want the same things in life and work in the same industry so have a lot in common and so in many ways I think we are a good match. However I have some concerns that have been bothering me for a few months but I’m not sure whether it is relationship anxiety from past trauma from an ex or that our relationship has genuine incompatibilities.
Our whole relationship we have only seen each other once a week even though we work 9-5s and live 20 minutes apart, and he usually only asks to meet up the day before we see each other so I usually never know when I am seeing him next makes me feel sad when he leaves as it could be over a week before we see each other again. I would like to see each other more like 2 times a week or 3 if he could and have mentioned this but he’s not changed and still sticks to seeing me overnight for a 24 hour stretch once a week.
He never makes any future plans with me, for example he doesn’t make any plans for more than a week in advance and acts shifty when I bring up the idea of holidays together. When we first got together he talked about how he wanted to travel with me because I love visiting new places and how fun it would be to live together eventually but since then he shuts down any conversation on going away and never references where the relationship is going.
He doesn’t message me a lot anymore. We used to message a lot very quickly to each other in the first 6 months which I understand will change with time however over the past couple months he now goes 2-3 hours between any messages even when I know he isn’t busy, doesn’t ask me much about how I am/my day and has stopped sending kisses or sweet messages like he used to. As we don’t see each other much this can make me feel very disconnected from him in between our visits. I’ve addressed this with him last week that the change in communication makes me feel sad and like he’s bored and he said he’s just been busy and he’d make more of an effort yet he hasn’t messaged me today for 7 hours now even though he said he wasn’t busy all day so the effort has not lasted.
I worry my boyfriend isn’t very deep – I’ve opened up to him a few times on things like my work stress when I almost lost my job, exam disappintments etc and he’s not great at being supportive as he says he doesn’t know what to say to people in distress/upset and finds it awkward. He is like this with everyone and when colleagues at work say a family member has died etc he is mortified and has no idea what to say. He said to me he’s almost never been sad or stressed in his entire adult life which makes me believe he just doesn’t think too deeply about anything including our relationship.
My boyfriend and I have never argued or had any upset at all. I have addressed a few of the above issues with him and he always just agrees with me and said he’s bad with relationships as this is the first time he’s been in love. He starts to change but then goes back to his ways after a couple weeks.
For context. I was cheated on and left suddenly by my ex of 5 years 2 years ago and it was a horrendous heartbreak. One of the reasons he said he did this was because we were arguing all the time about little things and he felt unappreciated. Even though I did not deserve what happened to me I am trying to learn from the experience to take something positive from the pain and so want to be more careful to not be constantly complaining to my current boyfriend about how he’s not doing enough/not good enough and pick my battles and have calm, constructive conversations instead of arguments. However I am afraid that if I bombard him with a list of things bothering me that 1) he’ll just agree and then not doing anything or 2) he will think I don’t appreciate him and just break up with me to avoid the stress. My ex was my only relationship before my current boyfriend and it was very intense spending every night together and living together from 6 months in and I was definitely love bombed (he said i love you after 3 weeks). Because of this I doubt my own perceptions/ideas of what a healthy relationship should look like, I understand all relationships will have problems and no one is perfect but the issues I mentioned are making me sad as I don’t feel truly loved by him as my idea of love would be him having the desire to see me and talk to more more and wanting to future plan with me.
I don’t know what exact advice I am looking for, maybe if anyone can let me know if I am too high maintenance and expecting too much or if my concerns are valid/invalid and how to approach the conversation with my boyfriend in a way that could be constructive/positive? Any advice on how to tell what is healthy/normal expectations to have in a new relationship after a previous traumatic breakup/love bombing experience?