My boyfriend and I have been together since high school, nearly five years now. We've had our ups and downs but we love each other and we're happy together. He has three younger siblings and a single mother. Growing up, her funds and attention were stretched pretty thin and he was generally ignored in favour of his younger siblings. This has given him some complexes around being acknowledged and reassured that he's wanted. He's also a much more huggy, touchy-feely person than I am. I've heard the whole love languages thing and ours are a little different. That's fine, I'd rather have a boyfriend who's too affectionate than not affectionate enough.
The thing is, I've had a lot more uni work to do lately and I've also picked up creative writing again as a hobby after a long hiatus. I tend to hyper-focus on things and like to get into the zone and concentrate. This has made him pretty insecure. He supports me in both of these things but he can't help feeling ignored (he hasn't specifically admitted this but I'm 99% sure that's the problem). I'll be working on something and he'll sit down next to me, cuddle me, ask how I'm doing, what's going on, and completely disrupt my focus. I'm starting to really resent him for this and it's bleeding over into our lives even when I'm not working. I've caught myself a few times with the 'oh god not this again' feeling when he walks into a room, which is the last thing I want. He's started to notice something's up and that's only making the problem worse.
We've talked about this before, but only in a 'hey man, maybe leave me alone when I'm studying' kind of way. I haven't admitted that I'm starting to want him to just stay the fuck away from me and stop interrupting what I'm doing, even if it's not important. I know I'm kind of the asshole for thinking this - it's more than likely that I'm really not paying enough attention to him or spending enough time with him and he feels lonely. I get that, but it's starting to feel like every minute I get alone is a relief. I'm also scared that he genuinely can't help it, or that he'd leave me alone if I asked but it would make him genuinely unhappy.
I know I'm being down on him but I really do love him a lot and feeling this way is awful. I want to appreciate his presence again; I wouldn't have been dating him for five years if I didn't like spending time with him. I want to feel that way again. I know we need to have a deeper talk about this but 'hey so I've started to kind of resent you being near me' isn't something I want to say to him. We also live together and share the same bedroom and workspace, so 'getting some space' is a difficult thing to follow through with.
Any advice would be appreciated.
TL;DR - boyfriend won't stop being affectionate with me when I'm trying to focus on other things. I'm starting to resent him and I really don't want to do that.
Submitted April 02, 2019 at 01:17PM by xiyu96 https://ift.tt/2TSUZsY
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