My boyfriend and I love each other, but we seem to want very different relationships. What would you do?

I’m 22, from Mexico, and my boyfriend, “Alex,” is Russian and currently living in Canada. We lived together in Mexico for around 4–5 months, and I genuinely love him. He’s someone I can imagine waking up next to and building a life with.
We’ve been long-distance since he moved back to Canada, and this is where things have gotten complicated.
I naturally want a relationship with affection, consistency, communication, emotional closeness, and a strong sense that we’re a team. I don’t necessarily need complete sexual exclusivity, and I can understand exploring sexually with other people, but I need to feel like I’m still emotionally prioritized as his boyfriend.
Alex sees relationships differently. He says he loves me and takes our relationship seriously, but he doesn’t naturally feel comfortable with monogamy. He values freedom, privacy, sexual exploration, and the possibility of connecting with other people. For him, loyalty doesn’t necessarily mean sexual exclusivity; it means honesty, respecting agreements, and being emotionally dependable.
A big source of conflict has been Grindr.
At one point, we agreed that if he wanted to use Grindr, he would at least respond to me first instead of being active on the app while leaving my messages unanswered. The issue wasn’t simply “you can’t use Grindr.” It was more about communication and feeling prioritized.
There was also a period when he agreed to delete Grindr and Tinder because I was struggling with the situation. He kept them deleted for about a week or so, but eventually downloaded Grindr again. He told me that he felt he had agreed to delete them because he felt pressured, rather than because it was something he genuinely wanted.
More recently, there have been moments where I’ve sent something as simple as “good morning,” and he hasn’t replied, but I’ve seen him active on Grindr talking to strangers. That really hurts me. It’s not necessarily that he wants to have sex with other people. It’s the feeling that he somehow has time and energy for strangers, but not a minute to answer his own boyfriend.
Communication in general has become another issue. I tend to call or text him every day because I genuinely enjoy talking to him. But sometimes if I stop initiating, nothing happens. He’ll happily talk when I call, but he doesn’t always initiate himself. I’ve started wondering whether I’m the one carrying the connection.
At the same time, I know I’ve contributed to the problem. I’ve become anxious, monitored his activity when I shouldn’t have, questioned things, and sometimes tried to create rules because I was afraid of losing him. He has told me that he sometimes feels consumed or restricted by the relationship, and I understand why.
We’ve gotten into a cycle where I feel hurt → I become anxious and confront him → he feels pressured → he pulls away or wants more freedom → I feel even more insecure → and eventually we both talk about ending things.
But then neither of us actually wants to let go.
I love him. He says he loves me. And when we’re emotionally connected, we have something that feels genuinely beautiful. He wants me to come to Canada, and I’m currently waiting for my Canadian visa. He has said he would like me to stay with him if things feel right when I arrive.
But he’s also honest that he doesn’t know exactly what our relationship will look like once I’m there.
And that’s what I’m struggling with.
I don’t want to change him into someone who suddenly loves monogamy or doesn’t want sexual freedom. I also don’t want to turn myself into someone who pretends that inconsistent communication and feeling second place doesn’t hurt me.
Maybe we actually need to find a version of a relationship where he gets the freedom he needs and I get the emotional security and consistency I need.
Or maybe those things are simply incompatible.
So I’d really love some outside perspectives, especially from people who have experienced long-distance relationships, open relationships, or relationships where two people genuinely loved each other but had very different needs.
Would you keep trying to make this work? Would you let go? Or would you stop trying to solve the entire relationship from a distance and see what happens when you’re actually together again?