Make my husband proud of me

I want to try and find something that will make my husband proud of me, instead of hearing him talk about other people.

My self esteem is not the best these days. Sometimes I feel I can do nothing right, while my husband is near perfect. I wish there was something I could do that would make him proud.

In my head I know he probably already is, but I’m at the point in my life where I’m not really doing anything of consequence and I feel the strong need to find a way to “earn my keep” so to speak, and do it in such a way that will make him think “I’m so glad I married her” whenever he sees me doing it.

I want to be the kind of wife that people brag about.

I know there’s some sort of deep rooted psychological need that wasn’t met as a child that causes me to so dseperately want the approval of my husband. But why can’t he just give me what i need? It seems the more I do to try to get a good word out of him, the more he finds wrong with what I’m doing. If I have dinner ready for him when he gets home, he’s mad because I wasted time cooking instead of cleaning. If I have the house spotless, he’s mad because I don’t keep the house clean all the time. If I ask him to go out on a date, he’s mad because I always want to spend money and stay away from home. If I want to stay home, he’s mad because I never want to go out with him. And it goes on and on. It isn’t all in my mind, which is what he tries to tell me. Other people close to us have noticed him doing it too. But if anyone else says anything to him, he blows up and says everyone is ganging up on him and no one cares about him anymore and he can’t do anything right. I know I can’t be the only person going through this, but it feels like it.