My partner and I have been together for a little over a year, we moved in together a month ago. Our relationship didn’t get off to the best start as during the lockdown he discovered he had latent feelings for his ex but worked through this and for the last six months we have been very happy. He had told me twice prior to then that he couldn’t say he loved me. I agreed to wait for him to work through things and we saw each other three days a week prior to moving in together. During the last six months due to the world opening up again we have both been able to pursue our hobbies out with the relationship and generally have a better lifestyle which I think has contributed to our overall happiness and we have been able to get to know each other more. I am now at the stage where I know I love him but he is yet to tell me he does. I feel loved in some ways, little things he does for me, and not in others. He can’t maintain long lingering eye contact and refers to sex as f*****g as opposed to making love. I know he’s said it in the past to people so isn’t the sort of person who would have difficulty saying it if they felt it. For me having heard that he does not love me twice makes it very difficult for me to say it first and I truly believe if he felt it he’d say it. I’ve been trying to think of gentle ways to approach the conversation or ask how he sees our relationship in the long term but Im afraid of the shutters coming down.
