Op, you may find my post uncomfortable reading. It might contain things you're not really ready to face, but I hope you'll still read it and make your own mind up afterwards as to what you want to do or think about it...
Abuse is about power and control. It is not about evil monsters who never do a nice thing in their lives. It is not even about nasty "abusive" words or violence, although those things might be used to maintain control of someone. All abusers have positive qualities (who'd ever go near them otherwise?). All of them.
it’s just easier to let him take the car but it means I don’t make plans as much.
he is so calm and charming and pleasant with other people but can be SO unreasonable with me and seemingly unable to have a conversation at times...
I won't sit here and quote everything you've said that is describing coercive control, but you are describing classic domestic abuse.
When people say that an abusive man will prevent his partner from going out, they rarely mean that he tells her "I'm not letting you go out", it means exactly the kinds of things he has done to you. Like with the dentist appointments, just as much as everything with your car. He puts her in a situation where gradually she goes out less and does less and sees fewer people - not because he's banned her but because he's made it so difficult she stops trying as much.
You describe him as making an effort. I'm struggling to see the evidence base for that anywhere in your posts - other than when he feeds you his fictional alternate reality in which you're the unreasonable one and he is hard done by. Which, by the way, is common to abuse/coercive control. In order to maintain their control, they need you to believe you're the one in the wrong and you're asking too much for wanting to have your needs and wishes respected.
Correctly labelling his behaviour isn't "bashing" him. It's unacceptable behaviour, so it's entirely appropriate to say "this isn't right, it's making my life difficult and unpleasant, and I want it to stop".
There is a reason joint therapy is never advised when there is any abuse in the relationship - and it's for the reasons you mentioned. Abusers charm the therapists, and pick up new tactics to maintain control. They learn to get better at charming outsiders so nobody else will suspect how unreasonable and controlling he is to you behind closed doors. They quote the therapist at you when you try to reason with them about their behaviour.
He can control his temper at work and with everyone except you, because he never actually loses his temper with you. He manufactures that anger to intimidate you into submitting to what he wants. If it was real rage he wouldn't be able to switch it on and off so perfectly, he would not be capable of controlling it, and nor would he be able to be utterly charming to everyone except you.
The idea that you think it's normal for you to be expected to pay for all the baby stuff for the child you are having together, as if it were the same as paying for your own haircuts, and contribute half to bills while on maternity leave, and just generally be exploited regarding the car situation is financial abuse. Plus his general history of leaving you footing the bill for things, starting with the wedding. He is using finances to control and limit your options. It is not normal.
I'm afraid it is also entirely standard for abusive men to come primed with a sob story about how difficult their ex was. It's a fantastic way to gain sympathy and to ensure they're given the benefit of doubt as their abuse gradually increases ("oh he's just like this because he had such bad experiences with his ex, I can't pull him up on it"). It's interesting that you recognise he would probably describe you the same way. I think you're absolutely correct that he would. But that does not make it true.
He is making deliberate choices to treat you like this. Those choices and actions should tell you everything you really need to know about his feelings for you, regardless of his words. Listen to his actions, not his words. His actions are of someone who is happy to hurt you emotionally, prevent you resting when it's already difficult and allow you to suffer pain without a second thought or concern, and is happy for your world to become smaller as you're restricted from getting out and about by his choices.
You can keep trying to reason with him, keep battling against him as he tells you yet again that you're trying to have everything your way when clearly you are doing no such thing - but he will not stop. He wants it this way, that is why he is not responsive to your attempts to reason with him.
He's not interested in reason, and he's not interested in your needs or wishes - he is interested in having everything his way, feeling powerful, and having as much control as he can. If it causes you stress, misery, exhaustion, illness... It won't matter. All he wants is control. He likes feeling powerful, he's not like you where you are driven by care for others and an awareness of their needs.
I gather you've been living this way for a while, so he will have eroded your sense of what is normal, but it really is not at all normal or acceptable.
He won't change. Unless he continues to get worse and isolate you even more. But how you're living doesn't sound sustainable for you, or what you want, so what changes are you prepared to make in your life and to be the one in charge of it again?
If I told you in ten years he would be just like he is now, only worse because he would be leaving you to effectively act as a single parent, would still be manipulating your own understanding of reality, would have continued to put you in a situation where you struggled financially and had fewer options as a result, and was just generally treating you like shit - how would you feel? Would you want that life?
Sometimes it doesn't matter how hard you try, you can't fix a situation that's being controlled by somebody else, so you have to take action in your own best interests. You can't change other people or their choices, but you can change your own and you can change your own circumstances.
I used to make excuses for the kind of behaviour you've excused and minimised and normalised on this thread. I used to blame myself for provoking him and not being perfect enough to convince him to understand my view and stay calm. I used to think everybody else's relationships and home lives involved walking on eggshells and having no choices about the things that happened in their lives.
I was wrong. It's not normal or acceptable or healthy. I am not telling you to leave, that has to be your choice, but you might want to think about where you would draw the line. I thought people were mad when they first started using the words "domestic abuse" to describe my life, and I was adamant I was not leaving as I was causing the problems. I used to respond with examples of times when he'd just done regular human stuff as if it made him a saint ("hey, last week he spoke to me without shouting, he's great!"). Even if he had imitated a Saint in between his abuse it wouldn't have made it okay.
Eventually I did leave though, and it's been a few years since. I look back now and it's hard to fathom how I managed to live like that for so long, and why I thought it was okay. But he'd spent so long telling me his behaviour was my fault that I believed it.
You do not deserve to live like this. Life does not need to be this exhausting, confusing way.
If you want more information to make your own mind up about the things I've said here, the people who run the Freedom Programme are really passionate about sharing information and giving women the knowledge they need to make their own decisions:
Www.freedomprogramme.co.uk
m.youtube.com/watch?v=dlVRds_Xrtg