I just read through your thread and keep hearing one theme and it all has to do with your unresolved issues. I’m sure you are aware if this since you mentioned your step dad yelling over money. But your analysis of yourself never seems to touch on this. You even seem a little uncertain why you want to be so self-sufficient. So saying that this desire seems to come from anger with your mom for depending on your step dad seems too obvious. I do not know your full history, so maybe you’ve already discussed this sometime before. But I haven’t seen talk of it on this thread.
In this way you sound a lot like my wife. Her father was abusive, her mother stayed at home without a job, education or any skills, so my wife was determined not to be her. She places a lot of emphasis on education as a means to self sufficiency, although she had a terrible education in high school, never studies and took forever to finish college. She prides herself with being self reliant and always tells me she doesn’t need me or any other man, but she is (until recently) a stay at home mom, dependent on me. She is better than her mother, but still is in her shadow and I think she really doesn’t like this about herself. (But she won’t admit it.)
Could it be that your husband was “abandoned” as a child? His neediness sounds very much like that to me. And that may be his attraction to you, finding a surrogate mother to give him the security he never had. And you were attracted to him since he was someone you could nurture, giving you a sense of control you never had in such a chaotic home? Again, I’m sure you are aware of all this, but it sounds like you have not confronted it directly, instead focusing on changes in behavior to help the relationship. But until those stones are turned over, the behavioral changes fade out and you are left with no more ideas on what to do. This is what I’m hearing.
Get those skeletons cleared out of the closet and all those suggestions you’ve made can have a greater impact.
