DP (27) and I have been together just less than a year having lived with each other for part of that (we started off as flat mates) and are now in a LDR, seeing each other once a month.
It started out with both of us saying we didn't want to do long distance... fast forward several months and he tells me he loves me but it still has to end when I move. Fast forward a couple of more months and we are on holiday together and he tells me that he loves me and wants to be with me having thought and that I'm worth it etc and wants to do long distance.
So I move and its a struggle because he gets a lot more out of being together which is understandable and we've only had one heated discussion since we got together - in which he is always reassuring - "remember I still love you and want to be with you" etc.
So we just get on with our lives messaging everyday, loving messages and I feel loved and cared for and especially when we are together. He has always said the word love to him is important and we don't (or didn't :/) say it everyday because then it would become "meaningless" if its just thrown around. It never bothered me because I would hear it sometimes and he would always be reassuring when we were having a tricky LDR day. Point being I felt treated so great and we've both said we want it to be long term - proposing "makes sense" with me which hasn't with previous relationships as does having children.
ANYWAY so everything was fine and then he goes away on a silent retreat for 10 days with no contact. He sets up 20 lovely scheduled emails to arrive every morning and evening and we see each other on Sunday, the day he comes back.
Everything was normal, we were cuddling etc and he was telling me all about his experience and then says he wants to talk because some things haven't been working.
He says he wants to feel like he can express how he really feels more freely because sometimes its hard to feel authentic in his loving messages when we are long distance and its starting to be draining and making him anxious. I say no problem, how do you imagine it being different? THEN he says that he cant say "I love you" as he was before because by his definition of it, he only feels it "sometimes" and it is so "sacred".
I fly off the handle basically and it gets heated. I ask (fml) and he says he doesn't really get upset at the thought of us not being together because "if there were a situation in which we broke up then it would be a good reason that would make us both happier...so I wouldn't feel very upset" and "well I'm happy by myself, I don't need you so I would be fine by myself... but it doesn't mean I don't want to be with you". He says he doesn't really look forward to seeing me until the day before but thats fine because its "like that with everyone" and "I don't really miss anyone".
He says he has to be honest and tell me this because he "wants to spend his life with me". I describe what I mean when I say I love him - he says that he feels all of that but can't say it in that context because it doesn't "come naturally" to him and "as soon as expectations are placed on the word it becomes anxiety provoking and draining and I start to disengage if I don't feel I can express myself freely without expectation". But still, he "loves us" and being with me...
But he still feels all those things for me that I would consider love. He just wants to use other words and will say love when he feels it.
So I went to bed yesterday (left his place yesterday morning) having spoken to him until 2am with tears streaming down my face.
I feel lied to and betrayed and I cannot emotionally understand it at all.
He sent me an objectively nice message this morning basically saying that he wants to move forward and find something that works because he wants it to work... "thank you for being you" etc and being able to have a difficult and painful conversation is "testament to us" and we are "still a team" and wants to plan what to do when he is meant to come up in a couple of weeks.
I replied saying I was hurting a lot and need space - to which he said okay and he doesn't want to cause me misery and wishes he was with me to hold me and give me a kiss and tell me everything would be okay (when in the past he would say he loved me D:).
Is he just processing shit from his (up and down) retreat experience and overthinking and communicating poorly after having not been able to for 10 days, or is this a serious issue? Logically it makes sense... I just feel so shit :(
Lots more was exchanged if any more info needed but I'm aware I've written half of my upcoming assignment!
Thanks for any insight and advice :/