love is there, but why are we struggling?

hello,

to add context to the title, my boyfriend and i have been going through a difficult time. it is hard to describe and i almost feel silly for saying it is difficult, because of course what in life feels consistently easy?

i describe it in a sense where it’s complex and not very linear. over a month ago, my partner and i decided to give each other space after our 1 year lil celebration. we struggled with communicating our feelings and we realized we were hurting each other by doing so. we wanted to think for ourselves without the pressure of hurting each other, any expectations, etc. when we came back from the break, we both felt stronger from it and we both talked about our ‘piece’ (from what we’ve learned to what we wanted to do moving forward). it wasn’t only that conversation as well, we’ve continued to have it if we felt like we needed to bring it up. but besides that, i thought we had grown stronger with the things we felt weak prior to when we had that time apart.

weve been doing our own things day by day, enjoying each other when we can and it’s been good when it’s been good. but we definitely struggled with the transitional period of getting back into the ‘groove of things’. but we made the best of it. but of course we had our moments as well where we struggled a bit.

currently, my partner has been struggling with feeling lost in his life. i know it’s a very common feeling as i have felt the same, but he described it to me where he can’t feel anything (involving his emotions). so that’s why as of recent he’s been not as communicative with how he feels when we talk. we had a talk one day that had me being very vulnerable about my feelings and him coming off closed off. it ended on a bad note but that same night before he left to go out with his friends he had messaged me how sorry he felt about how he was responding to me and how he couldn’t stop thinking about us. when he had gotten home, he had messaged me again saying he had read the letters i had wrote to him in the past and he was just emotional.

that night we stayed up talking till 7 in the morning. he wanted to do better and he felt ashamed that he couldn’t give me any vulnerability or any of his genuine thoughts and he was hurt for hurting me. i was hurt because of how he spoke to me but it didn’t compare to the hurt i felt when he explained how sad and lost he felt.

it’s been about a week since that talk and like before, we’ve had moments that felt normal and great. but there is just that underlying tense/awkward feeling. we are going with the flow but it almost feels like we aren’t doing anything to feel better in the relationship. i just feel almost scared to be vulnerable because i don’t want him to feel this guilt or pressure. i want to also consider how he feels as well of course. with these feelings or lack of going on, he doesn’t know how to navigate it so he just suppresses it and moves forward but we both see how it’s affecting us. he doesn’t know what to do and i don’t either, i don’t know how to navigate it.

i love and care for him a lot but i don’t know what to do, i know that i can offer my support and tell him that i’m always here for him. but since he feels so lost he feels he’s limited on applying effort to not only our relationship but other things.

im sorry if this came off sloppy and it doesn’t make any sense.