lol!! Nonsensical's answer was spot on!!! lol.
Kidding aside - check out a book called "The Five Love Languages".... I think that's the title.
I've been married twice and currently in a relationship for a year.... in those experiences, I've learned a lot through trial and error... lots of error....
One of the biggest challenges always seems to be finding the path to good communication and being able to understand one another's style of communication and how we are wired to see, express and accept love.
with regard to your specific comments; Men most often tend to be 'fixers' and to be predisposed to want to make things 'better' for those we love. It's one of the ways we express love.... we hear a concern, a problem, a fear, an anger, anything really - and we tend to be moved to take care of it. We can hear it as a request, even when it's not. We can become really overwhelmed and frustrated by complaints or expressions of emotions or issues that we percieve to be constantly there and we're unable to 'fix' them.
Why is this? Because, whether we are conscious of it or not - if our partner seems to be consistently unhappy or afraid or out of balance or whatever - the message that we can wind up telling ourselves is "YOU are a failure as a partner".
Often, women are dumbfounded by this perception. They express how much they appreciate their man and his efforts but deep confusion over their frustration and their sense of not being "able to do anything right" or their apparent anger for what the women see as 'no reason'.
I don't mean to put this on you - but since you are expressing awareness of it, progress may be most effective from your end at first. Perhaps trying to be really conscious of the balance of your daily sharing and interaction. Is the time you spend with him punctuated with what may seem to him to be 'nonstop' complaints? They don't even have to be about or toward him.... but if he has two hours with you and much of that time is spent with you expressing things that have frustrated or concerned you.... it may be filtered into his own self image as "geeze.... my partner is really frustrated and I am a failure becuase there's nothing I can do... this is pointless.... I do things for her but it's not working.... when will this ever end... is there nothing I can do to get better?"
Also - pay attention to how HE expresses love. Is it through gifts? Is it actions like fixing things around the house, building things, yardwork, taking you out? Often we as men try to express our love in ways that women are just not seeing - because their love language wires them to see "love" as "spending time listening to me...." for example.
An interesting experiment might be to find another outlet for a month or two, for your general 'venting'? Try to support your need to just talk about things and let them out with a good friend or therapist - and only bring to your guy those concerns and frustrations that really directly concern HIM or that he actually can do something to help with. And when you bring those - do it in a considered way, when you both have time and space to talk and listen.
I know that from my own experience - I have a VERY hard time feeling connected and supportive with a woman I'm in relationship with when she spends a lot of time 'venting' out the frustrations of the day about lots of things I can't control. It feels futile to me and engenders a sense of 'failure' and also consumes time we could be spending in more connected, deep, important ways.
Ok... sorry for this ramble.... please take it only as some observations and thoughts from my own experience. Some or none of it may apply to you. I hope you find ways to grow through with your guy to the place you'd both like to be. One thing is for certain; solid intimate relationships take work and patience. Sometimes, they just groove right along and they're in the zone.... but most of the time I think there is an undercurrent of work and patience needed to get there.
