I think my marriage is falling apart, and I need help. My husband [36M] and I [32F] have been together 6 years, and I think he hates me.

Okay, please bear with me. This is probably going to get long, and I’m 100% open to whatever advice and opinions you all have to offer. But I’m also just hoping to get this all down in one place so I can try to organize my thoughts.

My husband and I have been together 6 years. We have a 2yo together and a 10yo from his previous marriage. A year ago we bought an old farm property with the plan to tear down the old farmhouse and rebuild a custom home on the property. We build custom homes for a living, so we knew what we were getting into (I thought). My role in the business is design and project management. My husband has stepped back from day-to-day operations and is focused on building our house and maintaining/repairing the farm and it’s buildings. Our 2yo is home full time as we try to manage all of this, and I am responsible for 99% of the childcare for both kids.

My husband is incredibly particular when it comes to standards of work. He’s well known for making licensed carpenters redo work that’s entirely proper but doesn’t look perfect, just because they have a piece of house wrap upside down or some functional-but-ugly rough framing. In building our house, he’s turned down help from our employees because he just ends up redoing most of what they’ve done anyway. And to be clear, their work fully exceeds all code and best practice requirements, he’s just so determined that this house needs to be done right that he cannot bring himself to accept anything less than absolute perfection.

So instead of having our licensed and experienced carpenters work with him, he’s resorted to having me and my family help him on weekends. And (to no one’s surprise) we don’t exactly meet his expectations either. I can draft you a detail showing exactly how to build every aspect of the house, but I cannot operate the tools with the precision required to execute those details to his standard. My dad is more than happy to show up and help in whatever way he can, but again doesn’t have the skill to meet my husband’s expectations. My husband has gotten to a point where he’s so burnt out and frustrated that he’s just angry with everyone all the time. The kids and I walk on eggshells because no one really knows when he’s going to explode next. He can’t figure out why our toddler wants nothing to do with him 90% of the time, but it’s entirely because she doesn’t know what to expect from him. In the “before” he was the most patient and loving Dad, and both kids absolutely adored him. I was like chopped liver if he was in the room. Now, they’ll go to him if I’m physically unavailable but otherwise all of the parenting falls to me.

To add to all of that, when we first bought the place he thought it would be a good idea to build my parents a second dwelling on the property. It’s allowed under our local rules, and would work out well for all of us from a financial perspective. It also gets them closer to us for childcare now and support for them as they age. My parents aren’t tidy people who meticulously maintain things (quite the opposite) and that was a concern I’ve had from the beginning, but originally he thought it wouldn’t be a big deal because we’d just maintain things for them as part of the rental agreement. But he’s now so angry about everything that he doesn’t want them here at all. Except my parents sold their house this summer to take advantage of the housing market peak and are now renting while they wait for us to build their house. So backing out of that isnt really a great option.

And, as a result of all of this, our sex life has all but died. It’s kind of hard to let myself be vulnerable to the person who seems repulsed by my existence, so I guess it’s my fault that the bedroom is dying? I’m not sure, but he seems to feel pretty strongly that it’s my problem to fix. Actually, it’s all my problem to fix.

So. He works hard, I don’t dispute that. I know he’s under a lot of stress, and I know I don’t have the ability to alleviate that stress. If I could execute anything relating to the house (or anything else) to a standard he’d be happy with, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I can guarantee that anything I touch is going to be considered unacceptable, so it’s not worth getting involved.

He waffles between wanting me to figure out how to back out of the second dwelling thing and agreeing that it’s logically still the best thing for everyone in the long run. He recognizes that I can’t back out of that without destroying my relationship with my parents, and I’m concerned that even if I did blow up that relationship, it probably wouldn’t fix all of the issues we’re having.

Prior to buying the property and embarking on this whole project, things were good. We had the typical disputes about chores and communication, but nothing that couldn’t be resolved over a coffee during naptime. I had hope that the issues we’re currently having would get better once the house building stress was out of the picture, but I’m getting worried that our marriage isn’t going to last long enough to see that point.

So I’m open to absolutely any advice you have to offer. If cancelling my parents build at all costs is the best move, I’ll figure out how to do that.

Tl;Dr: Building a house and my husband is angry and resentful because no one can meet his (incredibly high) standards except himself. It’s impacting everything from our parenting to our sex life, and I’m not sure what to do.

ETA: Therapy is a no go. I know it’s the right answer and probably what we need, but he absolutely refuses. I’ll bring it up with him again, but he did it with his first wife and it didn’t work so he’s basically written it off. One of the most important factors in therapy is choosing to be there and buying into the process, so unless he’s on board I don’t think it’ll get us anywhere.