Morning M!
Wow.. well, at least you finally talked!! A few things struck me about what happened..

Firstly, WHY is he shouting and jabbing fingers at you !?? (and at the same time accusing you of being the old M still, reacting the same way).. sounds to me like HE is the one who is still being the old H, reacting in the old ways.. he hasnt changed has he, in your year apart? But you have. I dont thikn its acceptable that your partner should shout and point fingers and communicate with you in such an angry fashion. Thats not helpful! Have you tried to talk to him about that? I guess he would need IC to change his behaviour.

Secondly, it seems that perhaps he is really afraid of rejection or has too much pride, fear of failure, whatever, to reach out to you. He seems to be telling you taht when he says

"When I asked him how come he doesnt feel the need to hug, touch, kiss, or talk to me he said "why dont you?"? I told him HE needs to show me his love... Overall, he thinks he will get the reactions he used to get from me"

...so, perhaps if you DID open up to him or make yourself vunerable, he will respond? If you made moves on him, he would be more reassured?? But I guess you dont have to heart to hey.

I cant believe he left last night without saying goodbye!!! Thats not very loving! Thats not even courteous. Sounds like he was very embarressed and defensive about hte gift.. he seems to me that when you say these things to him, all he is hearing is "I'm not good enough, I f*cked up again"... maybe there would be time later in your R to make the point about thoughtful presents, but right now, things are such a mess, its like a sinking ship and its every man for himself.

Maybe you just need to talk more.. like you did last night.. can you ask him to set aside some time to TALK to you? Seems from an outsiders perspective, that you are misreading each other, or misinterpreting moods/actions all the time.

On the other hand, he is being pretty cr*p still.. like you say, not making the most of the days off in the city together and going home early for 'work'. Yeah right! So he can stay up till 4 am at the newspaper, but he needs to go get his beauty sleep at 10pm when he's with you? He's got his priorities all wrong, but hey, thats not news is it! You knew that already.

Anyway.. missed you too ! We must catch up soon!
xxxxx