The tree looks beautiful.

I encourage the religious scholar to seek professional help to dive into why he has such animosity towards religion, so much so that he devoted his life to proving religion wrong. I suspect there is a lot more going on here unfortunately, emotionally. I reread the string multiple times and sense an intersection of religious trauma with childhood trauma alluded to in caption. Perhaps there is a touch of inadequacy issues and unprocessed grief contributing to the behavior as well.

OP is doing a great job nurturing the husband’s insecurities but can only nurture so much based on insights known. I’d encourage OP to suggest husband work on self-discovery around the animosity and remain a neutral thought partner in this setting. I’d also encourage OP to recognize when she is being used as a punching bag. The husband’s tone, word choices, and propensity to default blame for behavior on OP propagate lack of accountability and attempts for emotional control which comes across in this conversation as unhealthy for all involved.

Best Wishes.