I’ve been here.
dead bedroom, feeling sad, miserable, rejected and dejected. Husband that frequently used porn and just couldn’t see why I found that hurtful (he really didn’t see masturbation and sex as related, whereas I can’t compartmentalise them to the same degree).
it wasn’t really the wanking that bothered me (although I do have generalised issues with porn/anything sex ‘industry’ related) what was so difficult for me was that he was able to meet his own needs (physical orgasm) in a manner *that made it more difficult^ for my needs (intimacy & connection through sex) to be met because he’d had a wank he didn’t have any interest in sexual activity of any other sort.
The big difference between my situation and yours was that we started out with a fantastic, seemingly-very-compatible sex life and after we had our daughter, it stopped (and I made sure I got back to looking v. similar to pre pregnancy, perhaps better, in an attempt to make him
want me again so that definitely wasn’t the root of it).
the upshot was that my feelings of rejection made me very vulnerable to attention from elsewhere and I developed a close friendship with a male friend* - it was only ever a friendship but it made me realise that I wanted that closeness within a romantic/domestic relationship, I didn’t want an emotionally distant partner and a separate intense friendship.
we went to marriage counselling and perhaps unsurprisingly, my husband’s issues really turned out to be fear of long term intimacy due to an unspoken fear of abandonment. He had a shit load of emotional baggage around his parents relationship/divorce and being abandoned by his mother (who had moved abroad to start a new relationship when he was a teen) etc.
we divorced. I married someone who, like me wanted intimacy through sex. Me and my ex are effective and respectful co parents.
My ex has been seeing a counsellor on and off ever since we split. We don’t talk about any of it any more but he’s in a long term relationship with a woman who seems lovely and I hope for both their sakes he’s fixed some of the issues that had him creeping out of bed for a morning wank in the living room rather than waking me up.
Alternatively, I hope her baggage matches his and she’s happy in a sexless relationship!
(he stopped drinking, so he has genuinely worked on himself since we split. I don’t think he would’ve had the motivation for counselling/therapy if I hadn’t left him)
It’s ok to have your own needs, and it’s ok for this to be a dealbreaker.
It’s ok if you just aren’t a good match sex wise and it’s ok to set yourself free to find someone who is better for you.
I know you’ve already had couples counselling but it might be worth one more try at that if the rest of the marriage is good? But if it’s something as deep seated as my ex’s issues you might well decide you don’t have 5-10 more years to wait around to see if he can fix it.
*we’re still friends but in a much more normal way, meet up a few times a year and WhatsApp news stories to each other, rather than 3am texts about the poetic potential of loneliness 🙄🤣