Thanks so much for your thoughts. We've actually been together about 3.5 years and this kind of "touching base" is definitely more important to me than it is to him. That being said, he is generally much more independent than I am and would not be bothered in the least if I were away without him and were not in contact. I guess we always expect the other person to process things the way that we do ourselves. Since he's not the "missing" kind, he doesn't really understand how I can miss him after only a week....and I can't force him to be more like me, just as he cannot force me to be more like him. So, we're kind of at an impasse over stuff like this...the bottom line is that I feel "needy" when expressing how I feel because he totally doesn't get it.

He grew up with his parents away a lot of the time traveling together, so he's used to this kind of thing. Although my father traveled a lot, it was not with my mother and I used to see the tension this brought about...It's hard to put yourself in the other person's shoes if you just don't feel what they feel...