I am feeling like I need a bit of objective advice for anyone around to tell it like it is and give me a slap if needed.
I have a boyfriend I've been with for nine months now and while it would be unfair to say he's not loving, his lack of emotional and sentimentality can sometimes be hurtful. Without sounding pathetic, I got zip- not even a card- for valentines day and found myself crying in the kitchen as I was cooking us dinner and watching the woman across the road be given a bunch of roses by her boyfriend. Mostly because I'd made a huge effort for him (card, fave dinner cooked, fun gift and naughty lingerie) and that he couldn't even manage a card really hurt.
I'm very overtly romantic, and do a lot and plan a lot to show him how much he means to me, and he's always been a lot less emotional and proactive with the traditional romantic stuff, but it goes beyond that in the sense there are big gripes in our relationship that are manifesting due to his unemotional and unsentimental view of life.
Example: he hasn't told his family about me, despite the fact that he's met mine many times. He doesn't really plan anything for us to do together, that's maybe happened twice in nine months. He's never said he loves me and I said it and he just kissed me. Future talk really goes nowhere and the best I get is places he'd like to take me in summer. There's never been any indication that he sees me in there long term.
The problem is that the rest of him is so great. He's a wonderful person, so kind and clever and interesting and generous and it's obvious in a lot of other ways that he dotes on me. Example: he'd drop anything if I needed something, he cares for me if I am ill, he makes a huge effort with my friends and family, he's totally reliable and beyond that he generally tries on a daily basis to see how he can behave in ways to make me happy or make my life better or easier. He's constantly fixing things or making things or sending me things he saw that might help me out which make it clear he's thinking of me all the time and really wants to be loving to me.
So it's very difficult for me to say he's unloving, because he actually isn't and it's obvious he IS a very private person and he IS very uncomfortable with the mushy stuff. He doesn't do the obvious things, but he does sometimes say or do things that are so lovely they make me cry because I am so touched.
So I feel very confused because I want to be okay with how bad he is at some of these things, but they hurt and make me feel bad. He says I am low maintenance, so I don't think I am always moaning or anything, but at the same time I feel like he's always apologising and trying to fix what he's done inadvertently and I have to more or less spell out the obvious to get him to do it.
I think he might be on the spectrum, and that fits quite well with a lot of things in his general behavior which might explain a lot of this but I also worry that maybe he just doesn't like me enough to tell me he loves me or to take me to meet his Mum or to stop and get a Valentines card. And I feel sad and angry and upset and I am wondering if I am being a big baby about it because I have this great boyfriend who's much kinder and more loving than most peoples.
If I do tell him something hurts me or feels bad, he generally makes a big effort to change it but I wonder why this stuff feels so important. Can someone give me perspective. Or even an idea of what a good relationship should look like at 1 year? I