Apologies in advance, this is going to be a long one. I also want to note before getting started that the way I describe things here is not how I would talk to DH, but I don't see the point in beating around the bush here. I am autistic and can come across blunt, but IRL I try to mask this.
Some background: DH and I have been together for 6 years, married for 3. We have an 18 month old. We met when we were mid to late 20s (he is a few years younger than I am) and are now early to mid 30s. We come from very different backgrounds: I grew up thoroughly middle class and am highly (some might say over-) educated. My DM was the breadwinner, but parents split up when I was young. He grew up in a different country, in quite a conservative and traditional community where people get married and start a family straight out of high school, women do all the childcare and housework, etc. He followed this path for a few years, but got divorced quite young and distanced himself from his community before I met him. He was pretty LC with his family when I met him.
The crux of the issue is this: I am not sure I am really in love with him, and don't know how long I can or should put up with what I can best describe as a mediocre relationship.
Before the birth of our child, we bumped along ok. There were obviously conflicts, as there are in any relationship, but they didn't seem insurmountable. The differences in our backgrounds sometimes came up, but again it just felt like part of getting to know each other. I will say that I wasn't head over heels in love with him then. However, he was quite different from my usual 'type' and I found him to be much more caring, responsible and, for want of a better word, mature than my previous boyfriends, which were all qualities that I valued in a life partner.
I had a pretty difficult birth, which left me physically affected for a good year afterwards, and I am still dealing with PTSD. Immediately after the birth, DH was supportive, but I would say it was around this time that things started to deteriorate.
In short, it feels like parenthood has made me grow up and made him regress. I now feel like I'm living with a stroppy teenager. He whines whenever he has to do anything around the house, does things half-arsedly, and spends 90% of his time with his headphones in watching a screen. Whenever I ask him to do anything (and why do I have to ask him to do everything??), there's a big argument about whether the thing even needs to be done in the first place. He's lazy about all kinds of small things (putting clothes in the laundry basket, bringing something up or downstairs, taking wet or dirty shoes off at the door), which often leads to more work for me. His personal hygiene has slipped, and he will maybe brush his teeth once a day but often not at all. (I find this particularly disgusting and off-putting.) Whenever he spends time with our child, he's actually just watching a screen and letting the child do his thing - he rarely actually engages with him.
He is convinced that he does at least half if not more of the household tasks and childcare. I estimate that I do 70-80% (plus 95% of the mental load, which he entirely dismisses). Both of us feel resentful that we are doing so much more than the other. We argue a lot about this - most days for sure.
Adding to all of this is that our baby is the world's worst sleeper. We are currently waiting on a medical referral because at 18 months he still wakes hourly. Until 15 months he would only breastsleep (with my nipple in his mouth), so that was me 14-16 hours a day. We worked very hard to get to a point where my husband could cuddle him to sleep, but he still wakes all the time and my husband won't put up with it for a whole night. To date I have had one unbroken night of sleep in his entire 18 months of life. It is undeniably me bearing the brunt of this situation, but it obviously affects my husband too. It also affects us as a couple - we have literally zero adult time, as one of us has to be with him when he's asleep or he wakes up. And thank you, but I don't need sleep tips as I have tried literally everything.
In my previous relationships, I've always felt like my partner was out of my league, which prompted me to try to do better - eat healthier, be more active, take in more culture, read more, whatever. In general, I guess I'm oriented towards self-improvement - I think it's important to do my best at the things I do, and spend a lot of time thinking about how to make my life better and perform better in my life. In this relationship, however, I now feel like my DH is holding me back, and that any improvements in our situation happen despite him not because of him. I would never say this out loud, but he does feel like a dead weight. He has very high self confidence and generally thinks he is very good at things without having had any training or done any research, and is very resistant to advice or tips (from me or from anyone else, but especially from me). He is objectively not as good at these things as he thinks he is.
I am not perfect and he does have his good spots. I have quite high standards and can be a rigid thinker (autism) so can be a bit of a nag. When he's in the right mood, he can work very hard and is actually a much better housekeeper than I am when he does it.
But. There have been two occasions recently when I feel he has betrayed me. One involves taking up smoking (which he knows was a dealbreaker for me, having lost loved ones to lung cancer) and keeping it from me, and at the same time adding to my already heavy load because of his sudden mysterious need for multiple hour-long walks a day. The other involves him spending a very large amount of money (several thousand pounds) without telling me on essentially collectibles when money is already very tight and I am denying myself essential things like mental healthcare for my PTSD.
Right now, I feel very 'meh' about our whole situation. I don't hate him and don't think he's a terrible husband or father. At the same time, I don't feel that he's adding a lot to my life beyond the practicalities (paying bills, childcare, some company). I do feel that he's holding me back in some ways. However, I recognize that having a young child is a stress on any relationship, and that our situation is perhaps more difficult than average because of my PTSD and our child's sleep. We are both open to couple's counselling but so far it hasn't worked out.
I want another child, but am not sure I want one with him. However, time is not on my side on this one. I also know I'm not the easiest person to live with. I think I probably did settle when I married him, but I also feel like that's kind of realistic? Like not every marriage is a fairy tale?
So I guess my main questions are: did anyone else feel like this about their partner and have things turn around? Is sticking with someone I feel quite ambivalent about settling or being realistic, especially at my age and stage of life? Would it really be easier to go it alone, or should I try and see the value in what I do get from the relationship?