Dear Katrine,

I don’t want to scare him away, maybe telling him something like i feel he has been distant lately and I’m gonna give him some and that he can always reach out to me

Well, if you phrase it like that, you’re assuming that he wants a time out, and you are giving it to him, and kind of pretending to be cool about it. Neither of this is true. First, you don’t know what his intentions are, and second, you are totally not cool about giving him a time out. Instead, you are very anxious about his potential leaving.

So instead of playing the “cool girl”, I’d talk to him and express my feelings. But as I said, without attacking him. This is called non-violent communication: you speak in the “I” form. For example, “I feel hurt when you don’t discuss important things with me”. Instead of “You’re being so cold and distant lately and aren’t telling me anything”.

Or you can say something like “I feel sad because I feel that you’ve been distant lately”.  So you express your feeling and tie it to his behavior, but you don’t attack him for this behavior.

How does that sound?