Hi, this is my first post (on all of Reddit, wow). I'm in an LDR and my partner is very stoic. In person, he's very affectionate—lots of cuddling, holding hands, etc.; very obvious expressions of love. When we're together, I don't really have problems feeling unloved or experiencing abandonment paranoia. However, he's very much not a verbose person. We both are on the autism spectrum but I'm the very (almost excessively) verbal type and he's on the other side of that. He's not nonverbal, just prefers not to talk a lot bc he's not good with words in general.

Because he doesn't really like talking and is uncomfortable with being verbally expressive, I feel this void of affection in our relationship. Since I'm also not so great at communicating when I'm feeling ignored and consequently distressed, I have trouble effectively explaining why this is an issue for me, and I also don't really know what to tell him to do instead. He likes getting specific instructions bc he has so much trouble reading situations and figuring out what to do, which I also struggle with but bc of the verbal/less-verbal difference, I'm very much about asking questions and investigating the dynamic to fix/improve it, while he is much more comfortable just ignoring the situation or trying to move on from it without addressing it.

He knows I have BPD but I haven't really sat down with him to go over in detail what that looks like for me and how it plays into my behavior/perspective/feelings/etc. He's not neurotypical and I know he'd make a concerted effort to understand, but there's a big difference of experience when it comes to emotional instability. He doesn't like talking about feelings and as far as I know either pushes them down or (more likely) just doesn't get deeply affected by most of his emotions.

This is his first relationship since freshman year of high school (I'm 21, he's 20) so it's all new to him and I don't really know how to teach him about this when I'm having such a hard time trying to reel myself in. I know the skills, I've done DBT and am very blessed to have an amazing therapist, but it's really hard to maintain that *feeling* of being loved. He thinks that saying "I love you" is sufficient, but logically knowing he loves me doesn't prevent me from splitting and having that fear of abandonment, especially when he doesn't give me a lot of attention. We mostly keep in touch with Discord (a teamspeak/group audio call software for gaming), where he has a server with his/my/our friends, and we all play League together (I know, I'm a degenerate).

There's a 3-hour time difference (he's in OR, I'm in OH) and I try to go to bed by midnight bc I'm going to college, but he's often playing games when I'm winding down for bed, and hanging out in the server with his friends. If I'm in the audio channel he sees that as spending time together even if we're not talking to each other. At night specifically, often right before bed, I get really upset and catty about feeling neglected, and when I'm feeling shitty like that I don't have the energy or the patience to explain thoughtfully, so he's probably feeling stranded and confused. In the morning I don't feel really bad anymore, so there's no way to really channel or understand it bc it's not fresh. If that makes sense. Idk.

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* tl;dr: Partner is 3 hours behind, doesn't pick up on me needing to have quality time before I go to sleep, isn't very socially equipped to begin with, I get pissed at night and split on him and don't know how to calm down and remind myself of emotional permanence.

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Sidenote: In the past I have had problems about feeling miserable in the evening/night. I get really hopeless and sad and feel very alone. So this isn't new for me. It's just a new challenge here considering the weird combo our personalities have, and how to address it.

Semi-related question: can I post twice in one day bc this made me think of other stuff too