A little background:

We fell in love and got married in less than 2 years. I never wanted kids for my own but have decided to take a chance as long as I still had the freedom to pursue my career and travel. This was a convo we had in the beginning. I also have said that I don't think of her as my own child and not looking to be her mother but a positive figure in her life. I do a lot for him and her on a daily basis and help out when I can where I can. But I also, have said that I do not full responsibility over her yet or expected to take over his duties like picking her up or dropping her off from school. The only thing we really argue about his his daughter. 

So, lately, we have been having issues with her being picky about food. I had been frustrated with it lately and doing everything I can to help find things she likes that are healthy for her instead of just feeding her pizza or mac n cheese all the time which we knows she likes. I tried to make a joke about it this morning about how I was trying to google things for picky eaters and they all end up being recipes with things she doesn't like and he rolled his eyes and sighed and said he hates being the middle man. It then turned into him using a tone with me and then me getting upset and raising my voice a bit and telling him he's being mean when I was just making a joke about the situation. Then, later, I apologize and trying to work through it but like every conversation, he says I never have anything positive to say about her. Only negative. 

I disagreed but at the same time I don't have a lot to say about her in general. I am personally there for her, sit and read with her, take care of her, feed her, talk to her about different things that she doesn't talk to her dad about. She even told me one day that I know her better than her dad. He seems to only ever hear the so called negative. I said I thought we were a team and trying to raise the best human we could so it's all just communication about things going on and trying to problem solve. I did recently tell him to tell her, because I was out of town for work, that i was proud of her for science fair, and I talk about her reading better, and even coached her on skateboarding yesterday. Once I mentioned these, he just went back to saying that there isn't a balance of positive and negative and  "To understand how it feels to only hear negative things.  It wears me down.  It makes me never feel good enough." 

I don't know what to do and trying to seek counseling so maybe we could learn to communicate better but I feel like there is something else or there are expectations he has that I will not meet. Obviously we will never completely understand where the other is coming from but I honestly just never talk about her because I feel like it's always going to start a fight. It's like he shuts down if I try to talk about her "shortcomings" as he would say. Then he compares me to my mom and says I try to take her down a notch and really I only do that when her ego gets out of control and she needs to remember to be humble is all. Never when she actually does something good. He's upset I can't tell her I love her but that also doesn't mean I don't care about her. I came into her life when she was 6, it's just different, and love isn't immediately. I always told him that feelings I have about all of this could change with time but that it does take time and this is where I am at now. I feel like a counselor could help but open to advice.