<human>: Give me the gist of the text in a nutshell

I have been dating my boyfriend for three months, and I can tell that I care for him much more than anyone else I have dated in the past. We were friends for about nine months before we started dating, so we know each other very well and are very comfortable with each other. With that being said, I do not have a significant dating history, especially compared to his, as he is 33 (8 years older). He has had a few long-term relationships and lived with a previous girlfriend, so he has a lot more tools in his toolbox to work on relationships. I, on the other hand, have not had any significant relationships. I have dated a bit, but always chose "flight" over "fight" when it came to dealing with the hard or emotional stuff. 

I am not good at dealing with conflict in my own life (which is especially ironic since I am a professional mediator/facilitator) and am concerned that I am going to screw this up with my inability to have hard conversations and communicate what I need/want. We have not had any huge hurdles this early on, but I find myself unable to express my feelings even in positive (but emotional) situations, like when we had the DTR conversation. I have spoken with my boyfriend about this, and he has been great about making me feel more comfortable communicating, but it is still challenging. When I try to pull away from more emotional or difficult topics he doesn't let me back out and really pushes for me to be honest. However, getting anything out of me is like pulling teeth. While he hasn't brought it up as an issue at this point, I can certainly imagine it will be a real hindrance in the future.  

What advice/recommendations do you have to help me improve my communication skills so that I can more healthily work on my relationship? Are there any books that would be useful to read? Is this normal? Is it just a symptom of my lack of relationship experience and will improve with time? Please help me suck less!
<bot>: I have been dating my bf for 3 months and am struggling to have hard or emotion conversations because of my communication skills (or lack thereof). Any advice/recommendations?