Marilos, I hope it's okay for me to engage in some real talk with you around this. Just one thing, all by itself, that you described in this last post has me absolutely at
"OMG, Marilos, Get the heck out, get out NOW." And that's without even taking into account some other things, from this post and others before, that have had me thinking this relationship sounds crummy for you at best, and outright emotionally abusive at...well, at worst for now. Abuse usually escalates.
I have a lot I'd like to say and talk to you about, but it's all going to be better as an ongoing conversation. I really hope you're down to have that conversation with me, because I'd like to have it with you. I'm strongly concerned you're in something that's bad news and have been working to cement yourself even more to it, which is -- from where I am sitting -- extra bad news.
When you say things like that his mother tolerated his father's emotional abuse -- and that intentional "zoning out" is exactly that -- for more than 40 years so why shouldn't you? My answer is, "No one should be any years tolerating emotional abuse, not his mother or you. You shouldn't set yourself up for decades of emotional abuse because OF COURSE YOU SHOULDN'T, no one should." When you say he's better than your exes, it sounds to me like how your exes treated you must have REALLY sucked -- and I am so sorry for that, Marilos -- if you think some of what's happening here is no big or okay.
That "punishment" thing? That's flat-out, deep emotional abuse. This isn't about what guys do, this is about what emotionally abusive people do. When people acting in emotionally healthy, not abusive ways want some space or a break, they ask the other person to give them that, and they do it as self-care, and sometimes even as care for the relationship, providing each person some downtime for self-care, not as a punishment. You don't even have to ask, "Does he see it as punishing me?" because he has made as clear as possible that, yep, that's what it is about.
He calls it that outright.
That's someone both treating you like a child and abusing you like a child (doing that kind of thing to children is also abuse). That's NOT a way that emotionally healthy people treating other people in emotionally healthy ways behave. That's abuse. You ask how you handle that when you move in together? My answer is that hopefully you don't, because hopefully you do NOT move in with someone who has shown you already they are and will be emotionally abusive. Getting out of an abusive relationship is already often really hard when you do NOT live with someone. It's a million times harder when you do. Honestly, I ask you, just as a relative stranger with empathy and care for you as another human being, not to make that choice and further cement yourself in something that's clearly super unhealthy.
Like I said, there's so much to talk about and say in here, but I don't want to bombard you. But if you do want to talk through this more, I'm here for that.
However your exes were, or it was in your family, or how it is with this guy, I can tell from how you've been talking, and even how you've been experiencing/framing some of this relationship with this guy not, that it was/is probably pretty crap in a lot of ways. And I feel like I can tell that you don't know -- or maybe know in your head, but don't totally feel it -- that you deserve intimate relationships DO MUCH BETTER than this. Without emotional abuse; without powerplays and dramas (like creating conflict between/about you and his daughter) created by someone else to keep you from having any real power and equity in the relationship of your own.
You deserve not to be asking any of these questions you've been asking on the boards about this relationship, like how you can learn to live with abuse or with constant fighting, how you can get your boyfriend to demonstrate any positive feelings for you, how you can get your boyfriend to even just listen to how you feel without shutting you down in every way, including outright pretending you aren't talking when you are (!). We can't fix or change people so they don't act like this: when we find ourselves involved with people like this, behaving like this, we gotta know however bad it is now is probably the BEST it will ever be, and if we don't want it to get even worse, we gotta just get gone. I know that sucks, and I know it can be and feel really devastating (even more so than emotional abuse, especially emotional abuse you thought was just normal). But what it also does is clears the area so we can be in relationships that are healthy and equitable and where we can be asking better questions than you've been asking, you know?
I'm in your corner. You deserve the good stuff, not this stuff.