What can we do differently?

TheBones, you seem to have missed the part where the OP said: We had a similar issue at the four-month or so mark, and I handled it by making myself extremely busy and not having much time for him, which worked for me but made him sad because he felt I was losing interest in him. OP, it sounds like your boyfriend has a need to always be the less attached one in the relationship. When you turned it around and showed that you were okay on your own, he freaked out... perhaps because you suddenly had some kind of agency in the relationship. I think both of you need to figure out why this bothered him and whether it's something that can be repaired. Saying "I can't spend as much time with you as you'd like because I need alone time" is one thing -- once a week sounds pretty damn infrequent to me, but hey, different people have different needs -- but childishly demanding that you don't keep yourself busy and enjoy YOUR alone time is not cool.

I WAS this person in my last relationship. I need lots of space, lots of alone time. And it was because, subconsciously, I didn't want to be in the relationship.

He's heard your message, he's aware of the problem, and he's decided not to change. You call him your boyfriend, but he's not acting like one. It sounds like he's your roommate and that's it. This has been a big enough deal that you've broken up with him a couple times before, and you haven't suggested that anything is better now than at those times. I don't see any rationale for trying to keep him as your boyfriend rather than just your roommate. BTW, this is not about him being an "introvert" (per lakerk's comment). I'm an introvert, and I've dated introverts. Your boyfriend's behavior is not simply how introverts act in relationships -- it's how he acts when he's uninterested in a relationship. I mean, is he an introvert? Probably, if he spends so much time at home. But that's not really the issue here.

http://www.articleclick.com/Article/Marriage--Emotional-Dependency--Needing-Space/962665One fears engulfment and is distant, the other fears abandonment and is clingy, and each side pushes the others buttons. If the clingy one starts to become distant, then lo and behold the distant one starts to pursue them. All my relationships were like this for years, and I feel your pain. Healing means facing your fears and figuring out what happened to make you drawn to this type of situation. It also often means getting OUT of the situation, which is difficult because http://www.abandonment.net/abando.anon.html

I'm not going to tell you to dump him. I'm not going to tell you to move out; I think you specifically ask for advice that doesn't include either of those things because you know that that is the only solution and you don't want to accept that. This is not an intimacy problem. This is not a problem about the levels of affection. It's much simpler. What's important to him is important to you. What's important to you is not important to him. You can't make it be. You can make yourself settle for the crumbs that he gives you, make yourself believe the emotionally blackmailing things he'll say when you've reached a crisis point and he realises he may lose you. You really can. It's miserable and it won't last, but you could do that. You're not helping either of you, but it's possible. Finding something to make you stop thinking about it, and that helps distract you til you're used to living with having your deepest emotional needs ignored is the key.

He's had every opportunity to show you what he wants from a relationship, and what he has to offer, and he's shown you. If you want to stay in the relationship, you can try being a little less available, to see if that makes you more interesting. You can suck it up and accept whatever morsels of affection he has available. In my unfortunate experience, some people (ex-husband in my case) are unable to accurately portray their emotions in words, but will communicate extremely accurately with their actions. If you pay attention to his behavior, his message is pretty clear; he does not want intimacy. Try to think a little more long term; is this really a sustainable relationship?

This post makes me sad. You're staying in a situation that someone else has, over time, set up to meet their wants/needs as much as possible with total disregard to what your wants/needs are. And you accept it it because of the scraps they through you now and then. But it's your choice to do that, so on to your questions. How do I correct an intimacy problem in a relationship? Well first of all, this is not "an intimacy problem" in my opinion. IMO, this is a compatibility and selfishness problem. It is a situation where one partner prefers one thing, and the other partner prefers something else. And rather than make a good faith effort to compromise and work out a solution where both partners would be happy, one partner has just, again, gradually set things up to meet his preferences to a greater and greater extent. He does not appear to have ANY intention of changing this even a little bit. He will never be concerned with your needs being met anywhere close to how concerned he is with his own needs being met. So if you withdraw again and give him a lot more alone time like you did before? All he will be concerned with is yet another of his needs being met, his OWN need to feel loved. You know, that need that he totally ignores as a matter of course when it comes to you. So short answer, you can't. There is no way for YOU to correct this. What can we do differently? You know the answer to this. And he knows the answer to this. He knows exactly what you want/need. However, for him to ever do that would require him to start giving your wants/needs equal importance to his. How likely is that? He sounds pathologically self centered. It's one thing to have your own preferences, not want to compromise them, and amicably agree to go your own separate ways. That's legit. But to keep someone hanging around with your goal to fulfill as few of their desires that you dont' feel like fulfilling as you possibly can- that's pretty messed up. I feel like that self centeredness a pretty fundamental trait. Maybe therapy would help if he ever wanted to change it, but it doesn't sound like he does. Maybe being dumped for this by a few people in a row might send him to therapy. But you don't want to hear that option, so okay. The affection is gone, and I'd like to bring it back but I feel guilty because I know he wants more alone time. Why do you feel guilty? He doesn't feel guilty about the fact that he knows you want more together time. You're both entitled to your own preferences. That in and of itself is not something to feel guilty about. Please no DTMFA responses, as I'm wanting to do all I can to try to make this work before I break up with him ... This is my attempt to give you a good-faith answer. Because I'm sorry, but you know what the right answer here is. You can: -Work out a deal with him where you will be seeking out the love and affection aspects of a relationship, outside your relationship with him. I will not be surprised however if, as much as he doesn't want to give you affection himself, he won't want you getting it from any other guy -Try even harder to make your needs fall within the area of things he "feels like" doing. Like, you could try just chatting with him over IM if you need him to talk to you, from another room. You could try playing games with him if he plays MMORPGS. But I wouldn't be surprised if even that is "too much" for him. -Try harder to totally squash your need for love and affection. You might be able to convince yourself that you have done this. But, you'll needlessly waste a lot of time, months, years, or even decades, feeling an empty and upset twinge in the back of your mind, when you could have been in a relationship with someone else who would have given you those things happily! Last thoughts: Would you be surprised if there was another woman he was talking to/being romantic with online/in game? Would you necessarily know if that was going on? Honestly this rings all the loudest bells of a situation like that to me. Have you ever considered therapy for yourself? I'm worried that there is some thought or belief or fear you have, that causes you to stay in incredibly crappy situations that don't fulfill your needs. I wouldn't want you to spend your whole life in strings of these situations when you really, really don't have to.

I was in a similar situation. It's so difficult because when you do spend time together, it's really fun/awesome/passionate/comfortable, right? It's just the time apart that sucks, but you try to be happy with the limitations he sets. But after time, it's clear that you just can't deal. Over and over again, you communicate what you need in order to be happy. You try so hard because, there are a lot of good times/good memories/good things about him that make me want to make this work. But listen - he knows what you want. You've told him what you NEED in order to be happy. He's unable or unwilling to meet those needs. I know you don't want to hear it, but you deserve someone who will give you more happiness than heartache. Dump him.

Last thought: Right now, we've only been talking about his resistance to/resentment of meeting your love/affection needs even halfway. But is he like this with ALL your want/needs, when they don't dovetail with his? What would happen if you needed to be driven to the hospital, when he was in the middle of a raid? What would happen if your car broke down somewhere in the middle of the night when he was tired and sleeping and the weather was bad and/or had a raid? What if you got pregnant? How would he be in relation to the child's wants/needs, when they conflicted with his? I just think that the consequences of staying with him could end up being a lot more than just the one issue we're talking about in this question.