Context:
My partner (of 8 months) arrived at my house after work and I was planning on cooking us a nice home made dinner (Moroccan stew with fresh ingredients). As soon as he arrived home I noticed he was in a bad mood with me. He asked to be left alone in my room for 20 minutes which I had no problem with.
I began preparing our dinner in that time and I went back up to my room and he was sulking and obviously annoyed at me. This annoyed me because he had arrived at my house and was being very unappreciative of me making him a home-made meal. I asked him to come and keep me company in the kitchen rather than sitting alone in my room and he refused and continued to appear grumpy. I went back downstairs and continued to cook for some time and then returned and spoke to him again, this time he said he was ‘expecting’ the dinner to be ready by the time he got home and this was why he was annoyed. He hadn’t communicated this wish to me and the dinner was due to be ready at around 7pm so not super late considering he arrived home at 6:20pm. He was acting really unappreciative and ungrateful (and it was giving some misogynistic vibes) so I snapped and said ‘I’m not your mom’ and told him to be more appreciative. He eventually came downstairs and joined me in the kitchen where I asked him to cut up 7 dried apricots and he stormed upstairs again. At this point I was furious and I didn’t speak to him for the rest of the night. I served his food and when he tried to crack a joke I said ‘no, I’m annoyed’. He never apologised.
Skip to the next day and he still hadn’t apologised so while I was at work texted him a lengthy message explaining that I was annoyed at him. I told him that I felt disrespected and I said that I’m not a 1950s housewife, or his mother and it doesn’t matter if the food isn’t prepared at the specific time he wants he should be damn grateful for it and that I was expecting a lengthy apology and to ensure it never happens again (exact text is in comments).
Following this my boyfriend apologised, but then continued to say that he was annoyed because he thought i was expecting him to help cook (I just wanted him to sit with me and I only asked him to cut 7 dried apricots after I was annoyed at him) and also so what if I did want his help?. This felt like he was justifying his actions (he said he was just providing ‘context’). But he then went onto to say that he felt I was patronising him by saying ‘I’m not your mom’ to him. He wanted me to take some of the blame.
We have both reached a complete unresolvable situation because I refuse to apologise for setting a boundary, I think it’s dangerous territory when I feel like I’m being made out to be a villain for standing up for myself. However, my boyfriend is close to ending the relationship because he says he ‘doesn’t like my communication style’ when I set boundaries with him. In the text I sent, I never insulted him, never swore at him. I did say he was ungrateful, and I said that it worries me that maybe he thinks that because I’m a woman I’m obliged to make him food with no appreciation and I said he was acting childish. The tone of my text was firm, it was obvious I was angry, but I never insulted him, I called him out.
I’m wondering if anyone has any advice of what I should do here? We’re at a point where either I agree that in future I will call him out on his bad behaviour in a nicer way, which for me it feels like I shouldn’t have to be the one who panders after him if he’s the one that treated me badly. But maybe I’m being unreasonable.
Just for further context to help me figure out what to do: he hasn’t said he loves me yet after 8 months when I said it at 4 months, I currently make a lot of compromises to cater to his needs, but he has recently begun therapy to help him improve in relationships so he is making some efforts, he has never been in a relationship before me so he has never experienced relationship-arguments in the past.
Edit: just for complete clarity, I have posted exactly what I texted him in the comments. Feel free to read if you want. It’s kind of long but I want honest opinions on whether I should apologise/change my tone or whether you think it was reasonable given the circumstances?