shandybass I can very easily relate to your description of the reality and your expectations of your h as a family man/father.
Before I met my husband he was absolutely wonderful with other people's kids. When our own kids arrived, he was very much as you describe here, very disconnected, would only register the children's existence when they needed telling to quieten down or be corrected. Personally I embraced the new relationship with my kids although it was extremely hard and I deffo had PND when both were babies (no support from husband and crazy levels of sleep deprivation, my own mum died shortly before I had children). I breastfed the kids, was not interested in being away from them, but I desperately wanted h to have his own relationship with them and actively encouraged this. I was never controlling or bothered how he did things, just wanted him to take some initiative with them.
When my first was a baby we had this incident where I popped into the supermarket to buy a few things. I was gone twenty minutes, the baby was about six weeks old, with hubby, in the car park. Baby was having a good old sqwawk, a passer-by made a comment about baby perhaps needing a feed. This seemed to be a defining moment: hubby felt humiliated, shamed, angry and powerless to meet the needs of his own baby. His contributions as a supportive and involved father have been pretty inadequate ever since. This combined with the uphill struggle of daily low-level anger and me walking on eggshells.
Do you know what? Hubby is like his father! hubby's own father was physically, verbally and emotionally abusive to him, his brother and his mum. But this same man is very affectionate and loving towards his grandchildren, my kids. I don't know whether there is something in the relationship with men and their own kids, it is a very interesting concept.
I forgive myself for being disappointed with the way my husband coped (or didn't) with family life, I just couldn't see it coming. But our relationship deteriorated over the years from what you describe. I eventually checked out of a very long while ago for the purposes of self preservation. His barely-suppressed anger and the general sense of burden that would come with him having to 'look after his own chidren on his own' (I work 50% weekends) became intolerable and five weeks ago I left. It was not the end of the world, in fact I feel emotionally liberated 100%. Nobody died. The kids are fine. We have a long road ahead (sorting out practicalities) but I feel great.
Don't know what you should do but I would suggest finding a very, very very, good counsellor for you. Or look deep inside and ask yourself what it is you want from your relationship and consider how you can address the issues outright with your OH, or not, considering that there is the difficult issue of stonewalling/passive aggression impeding the communication.