Hi Havery7, thank you for your reply. It is painful to know the truth sometimes, but I have to face it if I want to keep this relationship or help myself out.

My BF got his divorce over five years ago because his ex had affairs with someone else. I don't know how long it would take one to get over the shock from a divorce. Based on what he told me, they were both young (around 30 when the kid was born) and were frustrated with the kid's disease. He ended seeking for help from a psychiatrist.
I don't know whether I would ever have a chance to talk to his ex coz I live in the south, he somewhere down town and his ex way up north. The only time I got close was Sundaty evenings when I rode with him to drive his son back to his ex's place. I've never seen his ex or anyone else in his family so far (other than his son).

All I can say about him is that he can be very sweet sometimes, but can also say something in a tone occasionally that would hurt you . I simply ate it coz I did not make those small issues a big deal. On the other hand, I told myself that no relationship is easy and I should look at his nice side. I read some articles from eHarmony and tried to learn how to keep a relationship by giving him his own space and not fussing about him disappearing all of a sudden during our text conversation or over the weekend.

He wrote in his email last week that I'd been always very good to him. However, I guess that being good is not enough to keep one's passion in a relationship? No matter what I do for him and his son, he would look hurt and told me that I was inconsiderate once out of a million time when I mentioned that I had to go home to work on my thesis. I don't know what I am scared about...?

Hi Pilot, thanks for the reply. You made some very good points in your post. I have to admit that my BF and I do have communication problem which I realized at the very beginning of this relationship. I tried to talk to him about this at least twice (would be three counting our converstion last Saturday night). When I raised a serious topic, he seemed to be a bit uncomfortable and would take it personally that I was picking on him. And I had explained that I hoped the serious discussion (no matter how painful they could be) would help us to improve our relationship.

I asked him about the game tickets and the b'day party at his dad's place towards midnight on Saturday. He texted me back, quote "I feel ur looking 4 reasons to blame me for smthing. is there smthing else going on that u need to tell me?" Then I had to explain to him that I was only trying to start a conversation, rather than blaming him, whether we should let each other know if there would be any changes to our plan in the future. The same situation happened several times before. For instance, we had planned to meet and have lunch together (around 12pm) after his son's baseball game. The game had been delayed for hours, but he did not tell me until after 12pm. Or, I was to meet him after my test to spend the long weekend together (I emailed him weeks before and he said that would be nice) only to find out that he had planned to drive nother to his dad's place. He knew that I was going to help the girl shop for school on Saturday and I would try to cut it short so that I could meet him and his son afterwards. I was not prepared that things would go beyond my control coz there were so many stuff the girl needed to buy. I let him know that we were still stuck in the cell phon store late in the afternoon. I felt sorry that I did not meet the time he and I were supposed to meet, but I explained that it was an obligation from the family rather than having fun with my friends and ignoring him.

He told his son that day that I was going over, so the boy was not unprepared. It would have been nice if he could explain to his son further that I was occupied by something important and might run late.

His son have always been the priority since the first day we met. I knew it and I decided to accept it to as a part of the relationship with him. When he was still in the one-bed apartment, I slept in the couch whenever his son was over coz he did not want to drag the boy to the car after 8pm and drive me to where I parked. Eventually, I decided to drive all the way to his place when the boy was there. When he yelled at his son for not working hard on canoeing, I said in a nice way afterwards that it might be more embarrassing and hurt the boy more if he was scolded with my presence (he went to talk to his son and they made up). When he was trained on long-distrance running, I stayed at home and babysitting his son. I am not complaining or regretting about anything that I have done for the boy coz I believe it was the right thing to do. What hurts is that you would be called "inconsiderate" if once out of a million times that you were not able to help out. Just as what happens at work sometimes, when your boss does not recoganize what you have accomplished and gives you negative evaluaion if one thing goes wrong.

I do agree that the communication is a big problem here at the moment (or there may be something else as well), but it is difficult if I am the only who is working on it.