My husband won’t let me be my own person…

When my husband and I got married, I was 19 and he was 25. Because of the age difference, he’s always viewed himself ahead of me and that he knows more. Which to an extent is true, but apparently ever since we got married, he’s been trying to “train me up”.

We’ve now been married for 5 years, almost 6, and have 3 kids together. I have changed a LOT in that time.

I’m way more decisive and confident than I used to be and I think that’s frustrating for my husband because I no longer just go along with whatever he says.

Over the past year or two, most of our arguments have been how we don’t see eye to eye. I know that’s completely normal, but I feel like it’s different with my husband. Even people in his family have said how difficult it is to talk to him - that unless you agree with everything he says, he turns it into a huge argument.

The biggest issues we’re running into is how I, as a stay at home mom, would like to have a slightly bigger/updated home. We live in a two bedroom house with an unfinished basement in a house that’s over 100 years old. My husband sees no issue with this despite the fact that we have 3 kids and we always planned on having at least 2 more.

Any time I bring up things that are important to me, he dismisses them or gets irritated saying that my hobbies/interests/wants are pointless.

I’ve even tried to start slowly updating stuff around our house with my own money (I work 10-12 hrs a week as a cleaner) and he got mad. I bought a new mattress for example because our old one was completely deflated (it was a sleep number and the controller was no longer working) and he was pissed.

I could give hundreds of examples like this… but basically he’s not letting me be my own person. And I don’t know how to go about this. As a wife, I’m supposed to submit to my husband. But if I feel like he’s refusing to put me or his family first, it’s extremely hard to. He’ll spend hundreds of dollars on his hobbies, but having a safe, clean, bigger space for his family to live in is too much. Or anything I enjoy, he finds stupid.

I don’t want to have to ask permission for everything I do. And yes, I have tried talking to him about these things MANY MANY times.

What do I do?