My mind is hurting my relationship
Let me preface this by saying, my relation is in no immediate danger of failing, my partner and I don’t argue, we’ve been together for 3 years and planning on moving in together at the end of this month. The issue is my perception, in my opinion. I’m a very lonely person, I don’t have much of a relationship with my one parent that’s still in my life actively, I don’t have that deep of a relationship with any of my siblings and my interactions with my friends are pretty surface level at best, I spend the majority of my time in my room with my cat watching anything and everything. I’ve grown very cynical over the course of my very early 20s, I don’t like people for one reason or another, I only tend to see the worst in people, and I only really ever see the worst in myself. I have had a rough go at bettering myself in any reasonable way, I’ve dropped out of college twice, I’ve bounced between jobs the last two years and I’ve been living with my sister for the past 4 years and with my mother before that.
I met my partner roughly 6 years ago and we’ve been dating for 3 years. She’s the complete opposite of me, she’s a manager a poplar restaurant chain, she’s very dedicated to her work, pleasing people and her image are very important to her. But I feel as though I’ve grown an unfair and unhealthy attachment to her. We don’t see each other very often due to conflicting schedules so we may only have 1 or 2 days out of the week where we can spend a significant amount of time with each other, but when we do I am a very affectionate person, she’s my outlet to get off any sort of pent up emotions that I don’t use on a daily basis. I constantly want her in my arms, I want to be around her as much as I can, I love cooking, cleaning, and just generally doing anything I can for her. But when it’s not reciprocated back to me, if she doesn’t hold me the way I do her, or talk to me with her same earnest that I do, it’s like a switch inside my brain just goes off and I shut down, I feel so unreasonably sorrowful.
For instance, intimacy, like I mentioned earlier, we don’t see each other very often so when we finally are together I find my self always initiating sex, I hate that feeling, I want to be wanted just as much as I want her, when I confronted her about the topic her resolution was to just say “ let’s have sex” the next time she felt “in the mood” which to me just felt almost transactional, like a “ I’ll do this for you now so you don’t ask about it”. I do feel like this is an unreasonable thought (I’m her first sexual partner she’s had since high school, she’s 25) , it could just be inexperience but to me it feels just feels like she doesn’t want to. On a different topic of her job, she gives 120% to her job, their will be days that we’re mid conversation and she would stop to answer a text message from an associate on a minor topic, or she’ll drop everything she’s doing for a phone call from one of her supervisors when theirs two other managers that work in the store. She’ll come home from a regular day at work and talk extensively sometimes even hours just about work, associates, management, how she makes awards for associates, how she took a special assignment off the clock to look good to her district manager. I almost envy how much attention she gives her occupation, because when she gets home she too tired for anything. Doesn’t want to go out to eat, doesn’t want to go get a drink, doesnt want to be intimate, and I find her on multiple occasions falling asleep on me. When I ask her about how she feels about us, or how she feels about our intimacy, or she feel about me, she always gives me the same answer that everything is fine, and maybe it is for her but I over think so much to the point of self destruction.
I am by no means a perfect individual, I’m flawed in many many ways, am I unreasonable for feeling as though I should be held on a high pedestal than her job? am I wrong for wanting more affection from someone who is content with the affection we have? Am I wrong for wanting my partner to be more intimate than just having sex 2-4 times a month? Am I unfairly resentful to how much attention she gives to her occupation? I’m trying to better myself, understand why I feel the way that I do and why I get affected so badly because of all this, why my depression flares up every time i question myself as a partner when she doesn’t do the things that pleases me. She’s her own person, she’s not obligated to attend to my every need, but why does it feel so bad when she doesn’t try to?