This is a complicated story, but I'll try to make it easier to understand. We're 20 and 21. I hope this is the right forum for this? If not I'm sorry
My boyfriend and I dated for a month, he realized he was depressed, we broke up so he could deal with it, he went to therapy, still goes, and is doing much better. He spent the entire 3 months we were apart trying to win me back and said that the break up (among other things) was partly because he realized he liked me a lot and could see us together for a long time and it freaked him out. After I had heard enough (4 months of it) to convince me to give him another chance, we got back together "officially" about two or three weeks ago.
He's been really different this time around. He seems a lot happier and much more willing to put some effort into the relationship. He has said a lot of things that have made me trust that there really is something different this time, which I was not willing to believe so easily at first. But there is just something....
We both like each other, but we have so little in common. We were talking about why we're together, and neither of us could come up with why we work as a couple. He actually responded "i went to therapy because i couldn't figure it out". When we broke up, he said that before he met me he was lonely. So there is still a part of me that thinks we're just dating because of convenience or something.
Now to the problem that brought this all up. Both times we've dated, he has wanted to take things to the next level. The first time, he was a lot more persistent about it, and I had thought maybe that my holding him back was one of the reasons we broke up. Which I was fine with, if he was only looking for sex then good riddance. But this time, he's told me over and over again that I set the pace.
However, this morning, I was talking to him about me getting back on birth control, and with doctors appointments and my health issues, it might be a month or a little more before we can have sex (for the first time). He seemed ok with that at first, but then got really quiet and said that he thought I was lying that it would take that long. He seemed really upset. Like heartbroken type of upset, not mad. Like I was rejecting him.
So since we have gotten back together, he's been all "you set the pace, I don't want to push you, I want you to be happy" and he's barely been letting me know what HE wants. I know I'm not the only one who's opinion matters in this relationship. I asked him if a month was too long, and he just seemed really hurt and said that he's been waiting for 5 times longer than he ever wanted to already.
I know a lot of people would say that if he loves you, he'll wait and all that, but he just seemed so upset and hurt and not angry or pushy that I don't know what to think. I had considered that maybe lack of sex was the reason we broke up the first time, but he came back knowing I would want to wait, so I'm pretty sure that's not it.
It brings up the whole issue of why we're dating for me, because every time he seems like he really likes me, something like this will happen and I start to wonder if it's true.
I'm just really confused.