I (20nb) have been dating my long distance boyfriend (22nb) for nearly 9 months. We have made plans for me to fly down in less than a week to celebrate that together. I have been really happy to have them in my life, and happy that we have been able to overcome the challenges of long distance for this long. We have a really healthy and strong relationship, and I really love them and think they are the most beautiful and amazing person in the world.

A couple days ago, we were sending some back and forth flirty texts while they were working. They sent me a couple photos of their outfit from yesterday, which I really loved and got that across to them. I noticed in one of the photos, they were making a facial expression that seemed a bit snarky or sly, and I thought I could go off of that supposed humor, and said that they’re giving off the troll face.

They were really hurt by this. They immediately responded with “WHY DO YOU HATE ME”, which at first I thought was just continuing off of the bit, until they started spiraling. I was really caught off guard by their sudden defensiveness and couldn’t get back on my feet and explain myself. They continued, talking about how I am not emotionally mature like them, how hard it is being a fat, brown person with a skinny, white partner, going off about how I used to make comments on their body.

I will admit, I did use to do that, but it’s never been caused anything this extreme. I have tried extra hard to avoid ever doing that over the months. This is my first relationship, it’s the first time I’ve seen someone naked, it’s the first time I’ve seen someone so up close and personal where I am able to see every last detail of their appearance, and it is admittedly, a very bad habit of mine to point out things about their body, that I actively continue to work on preventing. From my perspective though, I didn’t see the comparison with the troll face as commenting on their body, I thought it was a facial expression that they were genuinely trying to make.

Being put under all this pressure was preventing me from being able to try to reason with them. I tried bringing up that I should have been more sensitive about their feelings toward their appearance, but they thought I was trying to insinuate that their sensitivity is to blame, not me. I said “you can blame me” and they thought I was implying anyone or anything else could be blamed, but I wasn’t.

The conversation ended with them saying they wanted to take a break, but they still want me to fly down in a week. They said they’ll try to text me back when they’re ready. I respected that and I’ve not talked to them since. Yesterday, I spent the whole day preparing a wholehearted apology that I plan on giving them, and now I’m just anxiously waiting for them to text me back, so I can give it to them

This was extremely out of the blue and extremely out of character for them. There wasn’t any buildup to this tension at all between us, it just happened then and there. The comments I’ve made about their body were all back from the first couple months of our relationship, except for one that was last month that I do take full accountability for, and have used that fault to realize what I was doing wrong, why I let it come out of me, and kept it at the back of my head so I can move forward in our relationship, and they seemed like they had forgiven me for it.

I do know they’ve been really stressed lately, about working and doing school full time, and on top of that, instead of taking moments to rest, they are hanging out with their friends at any chance they get, then go to bed at around 4am. They claim they want to be more social and make the most of their time with them before they move so we can live in the same town in 5 months. I’m really happy for them, that they’re trying to make these last few months really count, but I’ve been asking them to cancel some plans with friends for one or two days and take a mental health day for the past 2 weeks, and they won’t, saying there’s no time for that.

A part of me thinks this is a cause of what happened, because I can tell their mental health is rapidly declining, but I don’t know how I can help with that because I’m not there for them in person, and I feel like directly addressing it would not be a good idea. And now they don’t even want to talk to me at all for almost a whole week for what I thought was a harmless joke, and they’re also reconsidering even moving to be closer to me. I don’t know what to do. I really love them, but this doesn’t feel like the person I fell in love with 9 months ago.

AITA?