My husband and I have been married almost 5 years. We have two beautiful boys ages 4 years and 18 months. We strive for a very traditional marriage but I'm noticing that our conflict resolution skills are not very strong when adversity arrives. We had an argument the last few days about possible childcare and we're both feeling a lack of trust from the other and there's quite a lot of hurt feelings.

To be brief, our oldest child is special needs and I was suggesting a parents morning out program 2x a week for our youngest to give me a break during my other child's therapies. Otherwise there is no time that I'm not caring for at least one child at any given time. We don't have family support anywhere nearby either. My husband was not at all comfortable with putting our son in a daycare setting, emphasized how important the 1 on 1 time with mom would be for him, and the hurtful comments came from him saying that me getting a break wasn't a "need" but a "want" and that want is less important than what's good for our children. I felt very infantilized and petulant for telling him I needed a rest. I told him I wasn't feeling very heard or understood and at one point he said to me "What can I do to make you feel heard without you getting your way?" which enraged me a lot, suddenly the issue wasn't what was best for our family but not "caving" on my demands. He heavily implied that he knows what I need more than I do which just seems absurd to me, I have no history of mental illness or being consistently unreasonable.

My husband has always been a very involved father, loving and supportive of me being a SAHM, and a wonderful provider. In this moment I felt incredibly vulnerable like my wishes weren't being respected at all. He's upset because I'm only willing to have him lead the family when it's convenient to me. I felt like I suddenly had zero agency.

I eventually suggested we reach out to babysitters to come watch my youngest a couple hours in the morning so I could get that rest. He was open to this and said he's very content with the agreement we reached, but has been very clear that he doesn't see this as a "compromise" as if that's some dirty word. I'm feeling very lost because I think collaboration is so important and I think we can be equals while still having dynamic roles in our marriage with him as the captain and me as the first mate. He said he doesn't feel like he has my trust or respect anymore, but I feel like he was not considerate to my requests or feelings. He wasn't the one to think of any alternatives to daycare, that all fell on me to suggest alternatives. In truth I don't trust him to lead and purely agree with his decisions when it feels like he's not seeing any bigger pictures.

We've reached a solution for what to do to give me breaks but now he's very clearly wounded by my lack of support for his decisions, he refused to show any physical affection the last two days when I asked to cuddle or hug. I feel deserving of acknowledgement or apology for him trying to invalidate my feelings. It feels like we're standing on two sides of a river right now and I would love redpilled advice on how to proceed.

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Thank you!