Me and a friend have been trying to connect to Minecraft and it was working before

I’ve had this issues for about two months now. Me and my boyfriend were able to play before. We both updated the app and ours phones/iPad. I’ve reported this issues many times and I’m getting really annoyed at this point. At the time I spent $10 on the game and he spent $7 it feels like money waisted. I don’t know what’s going on but ever since the update it hasn’t let us play together