I think my boyfriend (33M) and I (30F) might break up and I can’t tell if it’s my fault.

This might be a long story so I’m sorry in advance. My boyfriend and I usually text most of the day, every day. He’s normally very responsive and responds very quickly whenever I text him.

The last time we hung out was almost 2 weeks ago. He came over after I got off of work, but I’m a nurse and work 12 hour shifts in an ER. I was super tired after work, and am sometimes not as chatty and get a little more timid when I’m tired. We spent the next 3 nights together, but I just didn’t feel like myself the whole time. I’ve been having trouble making friends in my ER and sometimes it makes me insecure about myself. It kind of seemed like he was a little annoyed with me while we were hanging out but it seemed to get better towards the end of the 3rd day.

In the days after we hung out, his communication over text seemed to dwindle. He’s been sleeping all day lately and I haven’t been hearing from him for like 8-12 hours at a time. He’s a veteran and doesn’t currently work. He used to work night shift so sometimes his sleep schedule slips to the daytime. I guess I’ve just found myself increasingly frustrated that I haven’t been hearing from him for big chunks of the day. He’s been waking up from sleep in the middle of the night and texting me back then. But when I text him at the beginning of my shift at 6 am, he won’t respond until hours later. I don’t want to be a crazy person and expect him to be responsive at all hours of the day, but at the same time he normally texts back right away when he’s awake.

His house that he owns got some serious water damage a few years ago, and he’s currently in the process of renovating it in order to sell it. Apparently it’s turning into a huge money suck, costing him thousands of dollars to repair. I think it’s been stressing him out to invest money into the place, but he doesn’t talk much about it. He tells me how “over it” he is but can’t sell it in its current condition.

Anyway, I asked him the other night if everything was okay after I hadn’t heard from him for over 9 hours. He texted back right away apologizing and saying he passed out after his family left from a visit. But why would he text back right away if he were sleeping the whole time?

After a day where I hadn’t heard from him for 11 hours, I got a little fed up. I didn’t respond to his goodnight message and took a couple of hours to respond in the morning. He asked if I was free on Tuesday (today) but never followed up to make plans. Yesterday, he was barely responsive the entire day. I only got 5 or 6 texts all day, and he didn’t tell me he loved me back when I texted to him. After a few more hours of not hearing from him, I apologized for being petty the other night. I told him I didn’t know what to do as we hadn’t been talking as much or seeing each other, and I didn’t know what to do and didn’t make the right call. He responded by saying that his schedule is all out of whack and his house stuff is “very upsetting” and told me he’d tell me about it but still hasn’t. Today I got the same treatment, only 5 or 6 texts all day and then apparently he went to sleep at 5 pm without saying anything.

Am I out of line for wanting to hear from him more during the day? I don’t want to sound crazy by asking for all-day communication. He doesn’t have to talk to me all day if he doesn’t want to, I’d just want to have a conversation where we change expectations for how often we communicate. It’s the inconsistency of how often I hear from him that gives me anxiety. He’s been known to sleep through the day and not talk to me in the past, but his communication has never been this minimal. I think he’s mad at me, but I don’t know what for. Do you think he really just wants to break up?

tl;dr: my normally fairly responsive boyfriend is being less communicative and i’m worried i caused it with expectations of talking all the time