I think my [early 20s] boyfriend [early 20s] is (unknowingly) manipulating me

Someone tell me I am crazy please.

Sometimes I do this thing where I look through our old text conversations and today I realised something.

Whenever I bring up an issue in our relationship, absolutely every time it goes like this:

Me: Babe I am unhappy with xyz/ I wish you would have talked to me about abc...

Him: Oh wow. I didn't see that coming. What do you mean I don't understand?

I then explain what I mean but phrase it so it doesn't sound like I am accusing him of anything.

Now here comes the part that makes me question whether or not he is manipulation me.

He continues with something like: I didn't think it was going to bother you this much. I never though about this. Wow I am so thoughtless...

And then after a while he will continue:
I'm just going through so much right now. My cats are sick. One of them needs a surgery.

Or

I'm just so stressed... Uni is so much and everything just sucks around me...

Or

I was raised like this. It is so hard for me to get over this.

But he never brings these things - stress, sick cat - up when we are normally talking/texting - only if I bring up an issue.

And the way this conversations end is pretty much me comforting him. Sometimes I even forget what we were talking about previously.

So far I have three instances of him doing this. I have realised why I have stopped bringing up issues lately - because he always end up making them about himself. And I end up building him back up.

Am I seeing this correctly?

Or is this just the way people generally respond to issues brought up?

Am I reading things into this and therefore minimizing what manipulation is actually like? Is this manipulation?

I am so confused right now.

There are other things as well but this is already so long and I just need some insight/opinions please.

TL;DR: I think my boyfriend is manipulating me. Whenever I bring up an issue he makes it about himself, I end up comforting him and I forget what we were initially talking about.

Submitted June 19, 2019 at 03:57PM by halflitrebottle http://bit.ly/2FnhDVZ