My boyfriend and I have been in a long distance relationship for more than two years and we are looking to close the distance in the next few months.
We have had difficult moments that I personally think were worsened by the distance and my poor mental health. I am currently seeing many professionals and working on myself. An issue I have been facing now and again is his poor reaction to criticism. I want to say that I have not been the best person at communicating but I’m progressing very quickly.
I now found myself in a situation where I’m significantly better at communicating but our communication problems as a couple haven’t changed. I told him recently that I felt like he wasn’t engaging with me and that was making me sad. He said that he was trying in a very passive aggressive manner. He is upset because I’ve said I felt like he wasn’t engaging and he feels like he is.
I have explained why I felt that way and showed him in a very kind way what I was talking about. He just said he didn’t know what to tell me and that nothing he did was good enough (which I haven’t said at all), that the reason that he views everything as an attack is because I keep attacking him. It makes me so depressed to have him say that when I’m opening up because I’m really worried of it turning into resentment or I won’t feel like he’s my safe space anymore. I just feel like my feelings are overshadowed by this belief that I’m attacking and therefore I am not valid in my upset.
TLDR: Each time I’m unhappy with something in our relationship, my partner says I attack him when I am not. It is forcing me to bottle up and I feel disconnected from him.
Does anyone have tips on how to deal with situations like these? I love him immensely and cannot imagine not being with him. It breaks me that he thinks I’m just being an aggressive person when I’m just trying to be heard.