We have been dating for a year and a half. A few months ago I underwent a radical recovery (thanks shrooms!) but every now and then I disassociate/split whenever my abandonment issues are triggered. It's caused some major problems, but I have to say I think the major problem is that boyfriend doesn't recognize when I'm not myself, doesn't care to, and does not listen to the list of tactics I tell him to try on me next time this happens. I tell him I just need him to hold me and tell me he loves me over and over again, yet in the moment, I'll push him away and tell him I don't want to be touched and he doesn't push any farther. Yet I know that if he would just fucking hold me and be sweet to me, it would take me less than a minute to calm down.

But he doesn't do that, no matter how many times I tell him. He gets angry. He yells. He gets cruel sometimes. Which I know I deserve in the moment (by provoking it, at the least), but I wish he could just take one look into my eyes and know that I am not myself.

I don't usually have the strength to tell him I'm not myself in the heat of the moment, so we fight and fight until I calm down enough to tell him I'm disassociating, and then things begin to click for him. But he doesn't even want to deal with me in the moment.

 He told me once "I don't love you when you're like that", and I think it took kind of a toll on me. I honestly don't know that I even feel the same way about him. Like I love him, but it doesn't feel the same.

We both work full time jobs, and it's put a lot of stress on our relationship too. I constantly ask for more romance, sweeter words, but he says 'that's just not me.'

Literally the best reason I can get out of him for why he loves me is 'because I've been with you for so long, I love you' and it's Hella circular reasoning.

I don't know where all this is even coming from, I thought I've been so happy the past year but I'm just now starting to realize that I NEED verbal assurance. I NEED deep conversations, and reasons for why he loves me. But that's the last thing he wants.

And I've vocalized how much all this means to me, how easier things would be if he could recognize when I'm splitting, how I'm unhappy with the lack of romance and verbal intimacy in our relationship (im a fucking poet for Christ sake, I NEED WORDS), but he just apologizes and then acts like everything is fine.

Sometimes it seems like there is no depth to him. I know there is, but he never shows it. And it's fucking hard.

He has problems with speech. Not really, never officially diagnosed, but he struggles with understanding words, forming sentences, etc. He's fine in a professional setting but when it comes to emotions? That man will stumble over his words for hours before saying a sentence that makes sense. And for so long I've understood, recognized that he loves me regardless of all of this, but now it just feels like I'm suffocating.

I do not want to leave.

But I want him to understand. And he doesn't. And I feel like the reason he doesn't try harder is because he doesn't care to.  he doesn't love me when I'm like that, so why would he care to hold me or make me feel better?

The worst part is that I'm patronized by our past. There are so many things he said he would do for me, he always talked about how sweet he would be and how much he would spoil me, how much attention he would give me, etc., but none of that has happened and I feel like it never will.

Im literally comparing our current relationship to what he said our relationship would be like in the past, and Im at a stand still. I'm unhappy with where things are, but he's made it clear he's not going to change, and I don't like where that leaves me.

Tldr: if you didn't read the whole thing don't bother, it's okay