i’ve known my boyfriend for about 5, almost 6 months. we met during online school (we now go to physical school together, and we see eachother at my house often so this is not a strictly virtual relationship) and hit it off, he had a girlfriend at the time who i actually talked to and got to know a little bit but they didn’t work out so he broke up with her and we got together shortly (about 3-4 weeks) after. everything was going great up until a week or so ago, when my paranoia has been through the roof for like no reason? i started thinking, “what if he’s using me for sex?” after all, he did jump into sexual things kind of soon, actually, before we even started dating, we had done stuff, which i was fine with at the time, but what if he somehow coerced me? i started thinking, what if he’s emotionally manipulating me? or is it my fear of intimacy? he always talks about how nobody has ever made him feel so loved and special in the past, and how he just wants to feel loved. we haven’t officially told eachother, “i love you” yet which i consider a big step, and him mentioning it so much sometimes makes me feel like he’s trying to coerce me into saying it or something :( i confronted him about all this and the feeling that i was scared of him being manipulative, and he was supportive enough, saying that he could give me space if i needed, he said he would never hurt me, but here’s where i had issues with what he said. he was very sweet throughout the apology, almost a bit too much so given how serious the conversation was; “is he using kindness to manipulate me?” he also brought up our intimacy in response to my fears of him being manipulative, basically implying that there’s no way he could be bad because of everything we’ve done together, but what if that’s a lie? the final thing he did that really hurt me/set of my paranoia was make a sarcastic kind of comment when mentioning if i wanted time apart. he asked if i wanted time apart, and then said, “days? week? month? year? decade? century? millennium? eon? “ and this just crushed me. does he not care about me so much that he makes a joke while i’m literally telling him that i’m afraid he’s manipulating me? he then said he was sorry because he realized it sounded sarcastic. after that, i said i was “even more scared now” and went to bed, saying i would text him again when i was ready. he replied saying, “oh i’m sorry :( goodnight, sleep well :(, hang in there, i know you can make it” please, someone help. i’m losing my mind. i don’t want to lose him, but at the same time, right now, i’m splitting so hard that he doesn’t even feel like the same person in my head anymore. i’m so scared he’s trying to hurt me. i want to hear the opinions of this sub. is it my paranoia? or do you think he might be manipulating me? maybe he’s doing it unintentionally? he has a lot of mental struggles he goes through as well, and has been very vulnerable with me... what if his vulnerability was to manipulate me too :( now i’m going past the scope of what i intended to write. i’m sorry, this is a rant but please, any honest response would be greatly appreciated. i haven’t gotten any sleep at all.