Oh, my! Do you realize how healthy you have to be to stand all that?

The part that's a bit hard for me to see is how anyone wouldn't understand that you need to take care of yourself -- anytime, but especially right now when you've got so much on your plate! Well, I can think of one possibility. I don't know that this is necessarily true -- I mean, I'm just imagining here -- but if your boyfriend happened to have some issues (as many of us do) about whether he was really quite OK, then (a.) he might notice that he felt better about himself while you were around reassuring him in whatever ways you do, and (b.) he might think that as long as you're still hanging out with him, it must prove that he has something going for him. In that case (still imagining here, mind you) if you couldn't give him as much attention as he wanted for whatever reason, he might start to worry that he might not be OK after all, do everything he could to keep you around, and feel like hanging onto you tighter than ever. Almost like trying not to think of an elephant

Make any sense? It does to me -- but then, I'm the one who made it up.

I think you need to take care of yourself first. You might be with your boyfriend for five more years or five more minutes, but you're going to be with you for the rest of your life. When you have enough for yourself, you may feel like sharing some of yourself -- your time, your attention, your feelings, your friendship -- with someone else. That's like you giving them a present. When someone tells you you have to give them what they need whether you're ready to give it or not, that's more like them trying to rob you.

I'd say, if you can, explain to him as gently as you can what's going on for you and what you need from him right now, even though you know it may be uncomfortable for him and he may worry at times that you must not like him any more or something. Do you think it might work for you to set apart a little time to spend with him -- say, half an hour or an hour every three days or so -- and see if you can put whatever else is going on for you on hold during that time? I don't think you should promise that you'll feel more like talking to him in, oh, two weeks or whatever, because you don't know for sure what you'll be dealing with in two weeks or what you'll feel like doing.

If he won't get it no matter what you say, you'll just need to set some clear boundaries whatever it takes, even ask your parents to help you enforce them if necessary.

Your communication skills already seem quite good, to me anyway. Still, I can see where if you were up to it... (Your mission, should you choose to accept it...lol) you could learn an awful lot very quickly from talking to your boyfriend about these issues that are so important to you and that he seems to have so much of a charge on, himself. I do think getting this settled in a way that works for you takes precedence over getting it settled gracefully or in a way that he's entirely happy with.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

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Oh, the weirdest thing just happened while I was in the middle of typing this reply. I was listening to a jazz CD, the track changed, and Stacey Kent was singing, "I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair..." It must've been just coincidence; the CD player doesn't usually act like that, and it can't even see the screen from where it is.