I’ve been with my boyfriend for about 1 year and 4 months now and I would consider him to have moments of emotional unavailability. He also has a difficult time talking about “deep or uncomfortable conversations.” To trouble-shoot this we’ve talked about what time of day is best to have a deep conversation (for us it’s not right away in the morning or right before we got to bed). We also try to set a reasonable time limit so the conversation doesn’t snowball into an hour long re-hashing of the same issues. Sometimes it’s not to get it out on the table and then each take a little mental break. These are just some communication ideas that have worked for me that may work for you.

The thing that stuck out to me in your original post was his sarcastic and dismissive comments. That is something I would personally address asap and state that there’s a difference between light-hearted joking and being disrespectful. I would talk to him about how this and hopefully he will be receptive to changing the way he chooses to respond to you.