Husband poured cold water on me while I slept

Feeling overwhelmed and looking for advice…

Background: My (32 F) husband (42 M) and I have a 7-month old baby. I exclusively nurse (we did triple feeds the first month because he was born very small and had low blood sugars and then switched to exclusively nursing because the bottles, pumping, etc were all too much for us, baby was spitting up / vomiting / etc) so we are currently only nursing (with some solids introduced during the day for texture / taste). We tried to reintroduce bottles around month 3 or 4 and baby refused. We’ve tried straw cup drinking around months 4 or 5 which might’ve been too early. It’s on my to do list to try again with straw drinking. We had some challenges at first with solids (he broke out in full blown hives with the first 3 foods he tried which spanned over about a month to allow breaks to recover between foods).

I’ve also had various health conditions pop up since he was born (so on going about 7 months now) that I’ve been struggling to manage. We had ants a few months ago and I thought I had ant bites all over my feet and legs. The “ant bites” ended up spreading and ongoing for months and I eventually learned that they are rashes, not ant bites. My hands started to break down in rashes too which I thought was a manifestation of my celiac (gluten intolerance) so I thought it would go away because I haven’t been consuming gluten and assumed I must have accidentally consumed some that triggered a reaction. When the rashes persisted, I scheduled with a dermatologist and she prescribed some creams including a steroid and antibiotic which have been difficult to balance because I need my hands to take care of baby. I ordered cotton and non-latex gloves to put over the creams but even getting the time to go through the cream routine, brushing my teeth, etc etc has been tough because baby is so mom-dependent right now and cries a lot with dad despite efforts for them to bond. At months 3 or 4, baby would take to dad for maybe 5-15 minutes total per day (24 hours). We don’t have any other family support and I’m staying home full time currently to care for baby.

Our current routine is that baby wakes up at 6:15 am, nurses until about 6:45 am, hangs out with his dad until 7:45 am, and then dad gets ready and goes to work at 8 am, returns at 4 pm. I usually sleep during that 45 minutes because after caring for baby all night (we also co-sleep and co-nap, please don’t criticize) it is the only time I get to stretch out in bed and sleep as a solo person and can sleep on my belly or however I choose. It is my only “me” time, and I choose to sleep after late nights with baby eating every few hours because I am completely exhausted and need the energy to take care of a baby solo for the next 8+ hours.

Fast forward to today, I was dead exhausted this morning, and instead of letting me sleep, my husband kept insisting I wake up and poured cold water all over my face while I was asleep.

It turned into a fight. We hired someone this week (as a trial week) to help us meal prep because I’ve been struggling to prepare healthy meals for myself while also caring for a 7-month old. We were still arguing when she was supposed to arrive so I suggested we ask her not to come today and we’d still pay for the day and groceries of course. He got mad saying the world doesn’t start and stop for my feelings which is true but we can’t have a stranger in our own while we’re arguing and I was still shaken up by the morning (husband smacking me and pouring cold water on my face to try to wake me up). When I mentioned cancelling today, he said, “No, she is fired if you cancel her today! You can starve!”

He says I was “faking being asleep” and I kept asking him not to speak on my intentions and I wasn’t fake sleeping, I was actually sleeping. Although “sleeping” is an oversimplification. In reality, I was half asleep, half awake, half paralyzed by what was going on around me and too exhausted to even use my words, half utterly defeated by the complete lack of emotional support I’ve been desperately needing.

I know this post is all over the place, we are just struggling, and I don’t know who to turn to for emotional support. I have been asking my husband for months for emotional support and am faced with invalidation and dismissiveness and I’m exhausted and don’t know what to do.

Any advice would be appreciated.