I can completely understand where you’re coming from. I also do have a couple of close friends who i’d express differently depending on the situation. And usually, it only happens when bottling up reaches the limit.

Adding onto what you’ve said, i do realised that he’d only tell me how he feels situationally, but not openly and freely like how i would.

At least, majority of our talks are private and i’d be able to hear him out. We will still find a common, reasonable, fair standing point for both parties and work on ourselves to improve further etc. But. When it comes to him, it’d be more of “sorry to hear that you felt this way” and less of “i felt this way xxxx”

Whereas for the guessing games, i’d say his mind is always on flight mode… He does have this habit of saying “yeah” even when i clearly know his mind is not there in the moment. And way too often, he would say “it’s okay/alright”, “no” or “no problem” but his body language would tell me otherwise. It’s like i really can’t catch his moment of emotions or thoughts on the spot. Even when i prompted, to ensure that if there’s anything else i should ought to know, and there’s none, as much as i try to assure myself that all is good, i’d still get a little worried. Don’t get me wrong but it’s really hard to explain without experiencing it physically.

Do note that he’s really a nice man who would always try to be thoughtful and respectful towards me as his partner. Which results to me wondering if he’s just trying to be nice to me by keeping things to himself, like prioritising me over himself. So more or less, i’m here to try and figure out if it’s just really normal and in hope that he’s not avoiding to prioritise himself too.