So me [22F] and my boyfriend [22M], have been together for just over a year and neither have said I love you. A few months ago he told me that he wouldn’t be able to say it (at that point in time) if I said it to him and of course I was hurt and confused by that. I brought it up again in December to clarify if it was a never or not ready yet kind of thing and I don’t really feel like I got clarity on my question and it’s been playing on my mind recently. I still haven’t said I love you because of this, but the thing that’s really bugging me is that I’ve noticed he won’t say the word love at all.
For example, he was recently reading something off my phone and it had the word love, can’t remember the context, however he stopped reading aloud when the word came up. So I’ve been ruminating on this and realised he just won’t say the word around me or gets kind of rigid when I say it (reading off a post/text/saying I love something etc). I honestly don’t know what to think.
He has said before that he has love/ care for me but that was the one and only time. I care for him a lot, in fact I’ve been wanting to say it to him, and I can tell he cares about me through his actions. Because of this though I feel like I’m holding a little bit of resentment towards him, especially when we aren’t together because I have more time to over think about it.
I don’t know how to have this conversation with him and I’m scared it’s going to result in me being heartbroken. Is this something I should even be worried about? What would you do in this situation?
This is a first relationship for both of us so obviously there are some learning curves but I feel really lost in this situation.
TL;DR – boyfriend won’t say the word love and I’m not sure if I should be worried.