Anonymous wrote:OP here -- Each incident alone is certainly not enough. But we now have no positive moments. All of our interactions are negative. No sex. Any sort of physical contact -- hugs, kisses -- are initiated by me and he usually acts put out just to give me a hug. He seems to only have disgust for me and nothing I do is good enough. And it is starting to have an impact on our oldest who is commenting and talking about it at school.
Clearly, he has other issues, and maybe you do, too. We went through a period of this, too, although from what you have wrote, not as bad. A lot of it had to do with expectations and perceptions. I expected him to do more around the house; he perceived he was doing a lot, or what he did do, I thought was pretty half-ass. So I would make comments about it to him. He felt that in my eyes he was never good enough. It got better after a while, especially after the kids got a bit older, but we did have to change our level of expectations/perceptions. I find the baby/toddler years were definitely the hardest on our relationship.
You said he doesn't want to go to counseling. But would he rather get a divorce? That's probably more expensive than counseling, and surely, a lot more of a headache. Does he also not see that it is impacting your oldest? Maybe he can go to counseling alone first (although I'm sure it would be nearly impossible to convince him to do this), and you, too, then go together. Actually, even if he isn't willing to go, maybe you should just go without him. You may still end up divorcing, but at least you will know you tried.