I [21F] and boyfriend [19M] shuts down during disagreements

So me I am a very emotionally open person and well he isn’t. I have made mistakes in the past with not always being open right away with situations, but nothing ever to do with cheating. I have a rough family life and struggle to hold onto my friendships because of depression i’m assuming and my inability to respond to texts. Lately my emotions have been ROUGH. I find myself overwhelmed and on the verge of tears or dissociating whenever I am alone. I think it’s derealization since my vision seems hyper focused and i feel like I’m in a dream.

anyways whenever i try to express myself it is met with annoyance and gets flipped on me and something I have done in the past that upset him which I thought we either worked out or never heard of it at all. I feel sad and depressed all the time with other aspects of my life and this REALLY is not helping it. I do love him but I feel as if he doesn’t fully know how to be vulnerable or show emotions to people, probably him being younger. I am far from perfect and have my flaws but I never shut him out like he doesn’t to me. I just wanna hear peoples thoughts on this I guess to know i’m not crazy

Also forgot to mention most of the time once I emotionally open up kindly with something that is either bothering me or upsetting me about him he completely shuts me out and goes silent and either goes “mhm” or completely ignores anything else I have to say. I feel very mentally drained by this and I have tried to talk to him about this many times but still nothing. I feel very alone and don’t know what to do when this happens. This all happens btw before it even becomes an argument

Posted Feb 25, 2026, 5:45 AM UTC

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