Can attitutes change in a relatioship? (in your experience)

[Sakuu4]

Eveytime I reach the "can I endure this for the rest of my life?" point, it is always about the same things.
Even if I see improvements it is still not enough to make me satisfied.
Did your SO actually adjust when you asked him/her to change , or did you have to give up / compromise?

The question is kind of vague on purpose, as it can refer to many things depending on people, as for me here my problem.
I'm usually the cheerful one, but sometimes I get kind of depress too, even about small and stupid stuff. And that's when I would like him to show some interest or give me more attention. It is pretty oblivious when I am sad as I am the one making the conversation going on and if I don't talk he just gets awkward and tries to end soon. I told him so many times ( we have been dating for more than 2 years) that what I want is for him to show that he cares and ask me why and insist even if I am not the most talkative. He says he cant understand when he is bothering or not so I should be the one asking for what i want.
Even if I do that nothing changes and not to mention the other day he did AGAIN the thing that I hate the most ( keeping telling me he'll be home in 1, 2, 3 hours always changing the time and then disappearing cause "he fell asleep", that is totally disrespectful in my opinion).
And again after me telling that i am disapponted cause I told him and he didnt say/did anything he says "I'll think about it". Like, for me, even a "sorry if I don't understand what you want, but i still love you and want to help" would have made things up. But at this point I am really asking myself if he will ever understand. And i don't think I can live my life (we have been seriously discussing marriage) with someone who manages to stay with me only when I am happy...

[differentcountries]

I have a suspiction that this has something to do with Janapese work life and employer's tendency to create a lot of overtime and let work hours drag on, without even paying extra or giving more time off. It can be hard to give notice under those circumstances.

I often have to tell SO I am upset (especially over Skype/phone apps) and ask for what I want. I am better at "seeing" him than he is at seeing me. I dont take that to mean that he doesn't love me. In fact, he admires me very much for my ability to "see" him. I have wondered sometimes if I had to be only happy for him, but I have explained to him that crying for me is not a disaster (he only cries if he is extremely upset) and that it is important to talk about our problems in order to solve them. He seems to respect that and work with me to fix our stuff. I started to tell him "poor you" when some shit happened to him, he LOVED it and I say it all the time, he even says it back to me when something doesn't go my way. It is a sweet, effective way of saying "I wish I was with you to soothe your troubles".

As for falling asleep, my SO falls asleep when we are supposed to talk, all the time. I know the hours he works, and I have seen in person how tired he gets (on visits he actually often sleeps after work before he can socialize with me), so I think it is very genuine that he falls asleep.

[Sakuu4]

Japanese routine could surely make things worse..
In my SO's case he is not working yet and he was just out with friends. I also understand that he can't think about me 24h, in fact I suggested several times during the night to call the next day but he insisted for me to wait for him. That's what pissed me off.
I didn't properly explain in my previous post, so I understand your points and I think that trying to understand the circumstances is something I can always improve on.
Still I believe everyone has things they can't compromise on (for exaple, for him it was living in Japan, so me moving there) and if I accept his he should accept mine.

Thank you for your answer