General

I would ask if you are in a relationship now with a larger individual. Large people have been the butt of jokes for a long time. Love and respect is all you can do the rest is on them. It's really hard when they don't love them selves.
As for any new relationships use discretion case by case basis. Slow and steady.

I'd probably tell them about it if I been with them for a bit but never push it let stuff play out as it needs to

Have you ever discussed this with him?
Maybe he is just a considerate FA who is afraid to 'use' your fat because he is concerned that it might make you feel insecure. Websites like this may give a different impression, but (unfortunately) the vast majority of big women are not so comfortable with their body.
From what I have read from you also from previous accounts, I seem to remember that you sometimes go through such spells where you feel less comfortable with your size, and maybe he tries to not emphasize that by paying too much attention to your curves.
I am very much like that myself. With most of my girl friends I felt quite some inhibition to pay much attention to their bellies or other 'problem' areas that they don't like. Also the fear that they wouldn't 'get' how it arouses me and might think I'm a freak for loving their fat, has held me back quite a lot.
Unless I'm 100% sure that the woman I am with likes it, I will not go and grab rolls and rub bellies and tell her how beautiful her large hanging belly is.

This also fits with the fact that when he has had a few, he does grab your belly, because as we know, alcohol lowers such inhibitions.

It is not easy, true.
But I would say, do what I have done:
Stay true to your own self! Don't do compromises, live out what is your real you.
I started off as a feeder, first time I fed a woman was the most wonderful experience ever. I learned, that sex was much more intense with a feedee, that could understand that I wanted her to grow, that I loved fat, wanted more fat.
Then it came home to me, I was starting to gain myself. Then a woman that had been my feedee confronted me and asked me if I was purposefully gaining. I admited it and she said that would love to fatten me up and see me grow. Something made click in me and I have been gaining ever since. I have discovered that I also love being fat, and next to helping women gain, I'm on the spot now myself. Not with that woman, that relationship did not work out, but every woman I met that was into this, I gained more. And now I'm on track to getting really super obese and I love it, I help it along, because I know it is my true self. I want a woman that loves my belly, appreciates it and wants me to grow for her. Having a partner that wishes that you expand is just heaven, and what has helped me is a woman showing me that she is into really very obese guys and showing me pictures and talking about why they like moobs or a really fat fupa. I guess I have been blessed, to have received a lot of encouragement from German female feeders, in the USA, female feeders are in almost all cases not really out about what they like and they hide themselves, which makes meeting them almost impossible. They don't stand by what they like, which is a damn shame. I don't know what that is, it might be that in the USA, people are much more repressed and less developed sexually. But I was always amazed, meeting female feeders online in Germany, how open they were, the admitted that it turned them on and it showed that they had pondered liking big guys for years and I did not have to educate them about it, they already knew.

See it this way: If you are a feeder or feedee, you will always be. Nothing will change that. So why not stand by it and admit it?
And seek out partners that are into it and avoid people that are not? What future does that have? Have you ever had sex with a feeder / feedee? Well, once you do, sex with a person not into it will become super boring and dull. Eventually you can't go back anymore, you can't get the junk food, you can only get the food you really like, to use an analogy.

And the true self always wins out, you can maybe delay it, have some more bad relationships, that won't go anywhere, but eventually, it will all come out and want to be heard. And by the way, you can also have a love relationship with a feeder / feedee, more so even, because you really really accept and understand eachother like never before with somebody else.

Oh, another important thing that has always worked for me:
Make sure you meet feeder / feedees in real life, whenever possible. This make sure they are real people, not just some online lurker, that is wasting your time. If you realize that they are deep in the closet, have no pictures or only 1, forget it, they will never meet you.
Once you meet them, you can start dating, meaning that you just get to know them as you would anybody else. BUT you will know they are into what you are into. Sadly, there is absolutely no real life community about feederism, people hide something pathetic and all my efforts to organize regular large meetings where people can get to know eachother have failed.
This would make things so much easier, having all people into this in a group. But you can still meet 1 on 1.