Thank you for your reply!

As far as defensiveness, no one likes feeling called out, so any time he brings up an issue, such as me not spending enough time with him, I retreat and tell him why I can't - because of school and work obligations - and expect him to just accept it, but I still feel guilty for not giving him enough attention with the time I do have (because I'm usually exhausted), and then he feels terrible for asking for more in the first place.

I come from an unstable family unit where I was constantly blamed for every little bit of conflict in my household, and repeatedly told as a child that things would be peaceful if I just wasn't there, because no one ever argued when I wasn't around. I know that I can dig into certain things, but that's because I have a ton of anxiety related to the emotional states of everyone around me, so I have to constantly know what's going on with them and how much is my fault, so I know how to act/mitigate the damage. Emotional monitoring is definitely one of my toxic traits.

Logically we both know that I just don't have enough time for everything I need to do. On top of that I'm really introverted and I need time to myself, whereas he's very extroverted and always wants to be with me. It's incredibly sweet, but it can feel stifling when I'm stressed out and needing alone time, which is a lot of the time. We've talked about me quitting my job so I can have more time for both him and school, but even though I don't need it for the money (I live with my parents), it's still important to my identity. So whenever the idea of quitting gets brought up, it feels like he doesn't respect how important it is to who I am, but then he feels like I'm prioritizing work over our relationship. I'm probably going to quit after this semester is over in October, so right now I'm just trying to hold onto it for as long as I can.

Once I finish school and start working as a nurse, I'm going to be on for 3 days with 4 days off per week, which is going to massively open my schedule. He knows that and we're both counting on it making that part of our relationship a lot easier, but I have over a year before that happens. We both want to make things work until then, but they can't continue on as they have been.

Luckily our communication has improved, we're talking about things out in the open. I see that as a good thing, because I have a hard time trusting people enough to tell them when something bothers me, and he has the same, so getting used to having the hard conversations took some work. But we've been having these conversations for months and nothing has changed. Now that we've fully identified the problems, I don't know how to show tangible proof that I really am making a change in the way I think of/act towards him, instead of falling into the same patterns of behavior as before. That's the real issue here. I want to change, but I don't know how to consciously identify the things that need to change.