Quote: was treating me as though he expected me to behave as they did...so I was getting the responses that they would have elicited from him (does that make sense?)...it was a preemptive defense. Is it possible that your BF could be doing that to you?
Yes, this is exactly what he does in many cases. His wife was a WAW and he is still bitterly angry at her. He resists seeing that people don't just walk away for no reason. I gather that his ex also complained about low frequency of sex. She is a pretty high-maintenance, demanding person-- I've seen her in action. But he is VERY loyal and would have stayed in the marriage forever. (They were together for 25 years.) I don't think he thinks people CAN be happy. He doesn't ask much of life IMHO. When I told him our sex life could be a thousand times better (meaning we could have a thousand times more FUN), he heard me as saying he would have to PERFORM a thousand times better and said, "I can't do any more! I can't deliver a 'thousand times better' sex!" I realized then that I had really put my foot in my mouth and that he saw sexual interaction not as two kids playing in a sand box, but as two gladiators entering the arena... "come back with your shield or on it."
