Lost in my marriage

I’ve been married about 4.5 years. It’s my second marriage and his first. I have a daughter from my first marriage (she’s almost 12), we have two daughters together (2 years old and 4 months old), and he doesn’t have any from prior relationships.

We both have our own unhealthy patterns developed from poor examples growing up. I’m super insecure and anxious about being betrayed or emotionally abandoned since that was my experience with my parents. He doesn’t communicate, is passive aggressive when he’s angry, and has gotten verbally and emotionally abusive in some of our fights. He grew up with parents who didn’t talk about conflict, so he didn’t learn how.

We otherwise get along great, but have normal frustrations with each other about regular day to day stuff, but share a lot of values and goals. I thought, anyway.

We historically have an exhausting, 1-2 day long fight due to some misunderstanding every 1-3 months. It’s usually him yelling and cussing, me yelling back because I can’t get a word in, him twisting my words, then eventually stonewalling me, me crying, sometimes he laughs at me, he mocks me, and ultimately I just never feel like he’s ever listening or trying to find common ground. It’s like he loves the battleground. He tells me I have it backwards but I just don’t see any behavior that’s intended to bring us together. Typically, he’ll get lovey on me later and apologize or I will. Then life moves on until the next one.

He absolutely refuses therapy, by the way. He says he’ll read marriage books with me, and he has, but he rushes through them to basically just get it over with.

Anyway, we had another fight recently that was a similar flavor. But this time, he won’t touch me. He won’t initiate contact. I try reaching out, since I’m normally not the one to initiate physical affection (for no other reason except I don’t think about it or when I do I’m afraid of rejection). I’ve asked him about this and it sounds like from his limited sharing, that he doesn’t want to do anything to rock the boat, but that he’s committed to me and wants to stay married.

I guess I feel like living this way feels inauthentic. I want to have this great connection with my husband and it feels empty right now.

He acts like he doesn’t know what I’m saying when I tell him things feel different which has to be BS. He jokes and laughs with our kids but is pretty quiet and stone like with me.

I don’t want to feel like he’s settling with me, but I also don’t believe in giving up when things get tough or uncomfortable. I just want us to be honest and committed to the uncomfortable journey as partners. It doesn’t feel that way at all.

I’m paranoid about my online footprint so will post edits in the post instead of the comments but am super grateful for any hope, advice, or guidance. My heart is hurting.