I (29F) feel like I’m at my wit’s end with my boyfriend (28M)

Apologies, this will be way too long than it needs to be but that’s the kind of person I am. I don’t know what to do. I feel like I buried myself in this hole and now I can’t get out. I’ve been with my partner for almost 4 years. We’ve recently moved states - away from our immediate friends and families in hopes of starting a new life together that we’ve always dreamed of and just signed a lease for a new place which we’ve already moved most of our stuff into.

My context: I’ve been in a few other relationships before this and they were all god awful people (cheaters, abusers, manipulators, etc). I never once thought my exes were “the one” but stayed with them for years because I couldn’t pull myself out of the toxicity. All that to say I have so much trauma from those relationships and they have permanently damaged how I’ve navigated relationships going forward. His relationship context from my understanding is that they were mostly good but ended on good terms but for reasons which I believe have affected his self-esteem though he disagrees (family not rich enough, family didn’t like he was a different race, all around he wasn’t good enough for them for whatever reason).

When I met my current boyfriend, I thought I finally did it and finally found the person I was meant to be and had truly never felt this before. Kind, funny, handsome, thoughtful, loved by everyone around us, shared the same interests and goals and values, all of it was perfect on paper. In some ways I still believe this but I don’t know if I’m just kidding myself. We fell in love incredibly fast and moved in within months.

The ongoing issue: He does not know how to take even an ounce of criticism without fully spiraling. I am someone that hates asking for help and I go out of my way to phrase things as gently as possible. The first time I asked him for help was after we moved in to our first place. Very kindly, I asked if he could help with chores around the house, specifically dishes. I always made sure to emphasize I’m never mad at him and would just appreciate a little help - that’s all. He immediately shut down, got cold, and reacted like “Wow so you’re saying I do nothing for you ever? I’m just a piece of shit boyfriend that’s not good enough? I’ll just do all the chores forever then because I’m worthless and stupid and the worst boyfriend in the world.” Then he stormed off to angrily do dishes until I had to tell him to stop, that this wasn’t at all what I meant or even implied at all.

This is how all of our fights go. Every. Single. Time. I bring something up calmly, and it turns into him breaking down into extreme self-blame or saying he “wants to kill himself.” If he actually felt suicidal outside of the context of us fighting about something he did, then maybe I’d believe him but he doesn’t and I don’t and I genuinely can’t tell if I’m messed up for that. I used to feel really bad for him in the beginning and now it’s become incredibly frustrating because I never get to express how I feel because it becomes about managing his reaction, his guilt, and his distress. When I’ve tried explaining the pattern, we still end up in the same cycle, then he needs to “cool off,” then the conversation is over with no resolution. He promises to come back to the issue once he’s cooled off and can speak with a rational mind but he literally never does no matter how many times I call him out on it.

And there is never a “good time” to bring anything up to him ever which is somehow my fault - “I don’t want to talk in the morning, I’m still waking up and now you’ve ruined my day. I don’t want to talk about this at night, I’m gonna sleep soon but now you’ve ruined my night. I don’t want to talk during a workday, I have work tomorrow. I don’t want to talk during the weekend, I’m just trying to relax.” He also doesn’t seem to understand how his tone affects me. I overthink tone so much and I’ve told him that over and over. But when he’s short, cold, or monotone, he insists he didn’t actually say anything mean so it shouldn’t matter. Even if he’s clearly angry and frustrated and takes it out on me by yelling at me, he will STILL try to gaslight me into believing he did nothing wrong because well he technically didn’t use mean words. But god forbid I give him a little bit of attitude if I happen to have a bad day and suddenly he understands why tone matters.

Despite all this, after enough time passes, he always comes back and apologizes deeply about how he realizes what he did and talks about wanting to be better for me and our future. But when I ask how he’s going to be better or what specifically he wants to work on…he can’t name anything. He’s been promising therapy for years but nothing. Couples therapy ended up focusing mostly on his emotional distress rather than the pattern itself, so it didn’t help and we paused those sessions to focus on the move anyway.

I’m not pretending I’m perfect either. I push too hard in fights. I rehash things. I’m overly sensitive. I’ve been working really, really hard on that and he’s acknowledged the improvement but the same dynamic on his end still remains the same.

I’ve always wondered if it comes from his childhood and constantly feeling “not good enough” for people, especially his parents. But I’m trying to understand if a dynamic like this can actually be improved, or if this is one of those things that tends to get worse over time.

I guess what I’m trying to ask is how do people handle relationships where conflict immediately triggers this level of shutdown, self-blame, or emotional distress? What helps? How do you communicate when every attempt turns into a spiral? I just want to figure out whether this is something that can be worked on, or whether I’m blind to how serious the pattern actually is.