I’m hurting my boyfriends feelings

Autistic adult here

My boyfriend is also autistic but he is very different than me. We live together. He is a pro masker and one of his special interests is literally people. He highly dislikes being alone with his own thoughts and would much rather be around people 24/7.

I couldn’t be more different. I love being alone with my thoughts. I am so utterly exhausted by social interaction. I can’t mask for shit. When I am out of energy, I am simply out of energy and cannot talk to anyone.

We are together nearly 24/7 and for a long while I was fine with this because we have great communication skills and out of all the people in the world, interacting with him is the easiest.

I am getting an insane surgery in a few weeks, 4 of my organs are being removed. Obviously, I’ve been very stressed. I am shutting down constantly. He has never seen this level of symptoms from me. He gets very worried when this happens. He is very easily hurt and I can tell me needing to be alone or me withdrawing affection is hurting his feelings. He tries to not show it, but he is very clingy (as am I, usually) and being away from me makes him upset.

These emotions of his and his subsequent need to hide them from me makes me feel incredibly guilty. I feel less than, not good enough, as though he should be with someone more “normal”, as if I deceived him into believing I was “less autistic” in the past. All of these feelings have honestly led to more shut down because I don’t ask for space soon enough because I don’t want to hurt him.

Im way less affectionate than him too, especially recently. I feel really mean not wanting him to kiss me, getting annoyed at his constant “I love yous”, wanting to be around me all the time.

He is the best partner I could ever ask for, but I fear he deserves better than what I can provide for him in this season of my life.

I know I just need to communicate with him better but it’s very difficult. Anyone relate?