Boyfriend M26 gets mad when I F26 communicate late

We’ve been dating for 5 years, most of the time we get along but whenever I feel uncomfortable it feels almost impossible to communicate that to him without it ending in a tense conversation. It’s really wearing me down and I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong… Before we started dating I was really comfortable with telling people about things that made me uncomfortable and standing up for myself, and that’s gotten really hard but only specifically with my boyfriend. I’ve had anxiety before our relationship but it’s developed pretty bad in the past few years or so.

Whenever I would mention something that would make me uncomfortable, he’d immediately get defensive, and it takes multiple hours of talking through it for him to come to an understanding and apologize. He explains that he just wants to see the full picture, but I feel like I’m being interrogated with no empathy towards how I’m feeling. It feels like I’m being pushed to my limits until I cry (which I usually do at the end). He knows this, I’ve told him this. He usually only truly feels sincerely sorry once I break down and cry, and I don’t want to function like that anymore. It’s caused me to be defensive back, and I’ve started to communicate less just to avoid conflict. This backfires, because once I can’t emotionally take it anymore and talk, he gets frustrated. I try to be level headed and polite when I address things, but I know that me mentioning this issues too late is a problem.

I’ve told him that there just isn’t a safe enough environment for me to feel like I can address things, even just small issues. He said he would work on being kinder initially, but I still haven’t seen that… it’s been months. Am I oblivious to my own red flags? I want to also help to make sure things are easier but I don’t really know what else I can do… He’s currently going to therapy because I had given him an ultimatum, but I’m not sure if it’s helping. I’ve asked about couples therapy, he said he was interested but later once he gets accustomed to personal therapy. It seems like it’s having a positive impact on his depression, but it still doesn’t really feel like he actively cares about me besides him mentioning so.

He says he doesn’t mean to do this, but he makes me feel dumb about hobbies we mutually enjoy, and at the same time keeps pestering me with questions that I don’t know the answer to. It’s.. made me not want to hang out with him as much anymore. He keeps saying he doesn’t know what to do when this tenseness happens, and he just freezes until I pick the conversation back up. He just… isn’t really patient with me and I get sad because I always want to be patient and respectful towards him. I can’t tell if we’re just incompatible, or if my anxiety is the root issue of this all.. It’s tough because it feels like he’s the sole reason for my anxiety in the first place.