I [24F] feel like my boyfriend [25M] doesn't give me his undivided attention often except when we're having sex

I've been with him for 2ish years now and I still struggle to get his attention. We've lived together for about 5ish months out of those two years. We're now in a LDR and likely will be for several more years. I have another 4 or 5 more years of my PhD program before I can move to a place that's good for both of us. When we were living together and even early on in our relationship, it was very hard to get his attention. He'd be on his phone throughout dinner - some days not even talking or looking up, when we were in bed together, and if we played a game together or watched a movie he'd also be on his phone. The only consistent time he'll interact with me interrupted for more than about five minutes is when we have sex. A few minutes after we finish he usually goes back on his phone or plays video games. This always hurts. A lot. I know this isn't the case but it feels like the only time I'm worthy of his love and attention is when we're having sex and when that's over I'm no longer interesting or valuable.

I've tried talking about all of this to him multiple times. I tried to talk to him to explain that after sex I'd love to have his attention for a few more minutes - talking, cuddling, etc - especially after more intense things. He says that he's still giving me physical contact and he just likes watching tiktoks or looking at imgur. I don't want to stop him from doing things that make him happy, but the timing hurts. Outside of that he always brushes it off saying in past relationships his girlfriends didn't want to spend much time with him or says that he thinks he has "bpd or adhd or something". I try so hard to make him know and feel as if he's loved and supported and that I value his thoughts and love to spend quality time together. I'm not a psychologist so I don't know if he's struggling with bpd, adhd, or something else, but I'm doing my best to read up about both and learn how to best be supportive. However, it sometimes feels as if his lack of attention is because he doesn't care to try for me. He tends to be more attentive to friends, family, and he can focus on a video game, tv show, or a book for hours.

We express and see love very differently. I tend to offer words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, and doing nice little things to brighten people's days. He loves when I'm verbally supportive and loving and definitely loves physical touch. He tends to show love by cute supportive gestures (if I have a bad day and am tired, he'll offer to make me tea) and by physical touch (hugs and such but sometimes physical touch that I don't want). I realize because of the way he shows love, it's harder to do in a LDR and I'm trying to be mindful of it. But it still really hurts. And when I get to see him every few months he only seems happy to see me for a few hours to a day before he stops actively engaging with me.

I just feel so lonely and sad. Life is crazy stressful between volunteering, work, research, grad classes, housemate/family/friend stuff, and trying to have a social life. When we talk on the phone at night he's always multitasking and playing a game or watching videos but on the rare occasion I open up about feeling overwhelmed or if I get so stressed I cry during the call, he'll tell me I've got his complete attention and he's listening... but I can literally hear him playing video games and a lot of times he won't respond or comment to anything I'm saying, answer direct questions for his thoughts/advice, and there have been multiple times where I've trailed off mid-sentence and he's literally never noticed. If he's not feeling up to listening/doesn't have the emotional bandwidth at the moment that's completely okay. If he's busy or wants to do other things that's completely okay. I just wish he'd say that because half-assed support/attention feels worse than no attention in some circumstances.

Tl;dr is I'm at a loss for how to improve my relationship w/ my BF and would love to earn his attention more but don't know how. I'm sad, lonely, and stressed and feel like he doesn't value me or my relationship with him a lot of the time. He tells me he loves me but his actions don't always say the same thing/it doesn't always feel like it to me.

Submitted April 25, 2020 at 06:27PM by DurotarHorde https://ift.tt/2W2MhM5