Disheartening and hopeless vent

I’m about to turn 35 this month. I’ve been with my husband since I was 20. My entire adult life so far it feels like. We have young kids. He has a career. I’m working towards one. We have a house. Day the day things are ok. He’s a good dad and provider. He’s good to others. But with me his patience is slim to none. He’s always acting annoyed by me. If anything challenging comes up and I express it he doesn’t want to address it and will often dismiss and invalidate me.

I’ve always loved him a lot. Ive always been very loyal. I’m pretty traditional as far as gender roles go. I have male colleague friends and such but I’m not one to go to coffee shops with males and chat with them. I’m very monogamous and reserve that for my relationship. The biggest issue between us has been that he has a major wandering eye. Since we’ve met. To be honest in my early 20s I was a very gorgeous girl. I didn’t feel it back then but now when I see pictures of myself I feel bad for that girl. I was beautiful. I was a good girlfriend. I had dreams and hobbies. You can see there was light behind my eyes. I really lost myself in my marriage. I really desperately wanted a family.

My husband has always made close friends with hot women everywhere he’d go. Any class or job he’d take on he’d become besties with the attractive women and then they would begin messaging each other throughout the days. Anytime I brought up feeling insecure and shitty about it he’d always tell me I was controlling and “the most insecure person in the world”. I’ve had men hit on me throughout our relationship and invite me to hangout and I’ve always declined and refused entering close friendships with them out of respect for my partner.

Last year he ended up in the bathroom of his private office he shared with a skanky coworker who turned out to go in there to help him “fix his hair”. I found out they exchanged 400 messages the month that it started.
I actually wanted to kill myself. I drank an entire bottle of vodka and honestly thought about offing myself.
Anytime we go to public places he stops mid conversation to look at an ass that walks by. And not just once but each time that ass walks by him he has to take a look. I’ve seen him exchange gross perverted facial exchanges with skanks who absolutely do not care that he’s married with kids and that I’m right there. I’ve tried having conversations about it and he said he’d try working on it. His trying now is that he does it in a less obvious way and then when they walk off he puts his arm around my shoulder. It’s so humiliating and embarrassing I’ve stopped looking at who he just looked at because I don’t want to see it anymore. I just want to disappear.

Last year I met a man that I did actually click with as a friend. We started hanging out in a group of friends. He ended up complimenting me on my looks one day. Saying that I’m a beautiful woman and that he’s shocked about my age and how many kids I’ve had. My husband found out and absolutely lost it. He accused me of emotional infidelity. Actually this friend was the first and only person to bring me out of the painful darkness I’ve been living in. His words towards me were genuine and I gained so much confidence from that after having my self esteem be on the floor. I realized I am beautiful and worthy. My husband seemed really upset that this man gave me such a gift and demanded I cut the friendship. I honored that and asked him if he would cut off his inappropriate relationships. Particularly the one with the skank at work. He didn’t and then ended up in the bathroom with her.

Now when it comes to our sexuality…it has always been a 1 way street. Sex was always about him. How he wants it. When he wants it. For some reason whenever I’ve felt really horny and initiate sex if get rejected but he would also complain that I never initiate or dress sexy for him. He had a weird fixation with sexy lingerie. I did that for him for a while…all his requests for what I wear and how I’d act. And the pictures he’d ask for. It honesty never did it for me but I’d honor it for him. He never seemed to care about my desires at all. He’d never prioritize my pleasure or orgasms. I asked for more foreplay and just kept getting ignored. It also turned out that he had a big pornography problem. As he got older it started to impact him. He got insecure about his body, started having sexual dysfunction issues, and started accusing me of things like that I fantasize about other men during sex…it turned out that’s what he was doing as his brain was filled with pornographic garbage. I found out all those days he said he didn’t want sex with me he was actually getting off with porn.

We’ve done a lot of work in the past year . Went to therapy. Started to get better seemingly. We started having sex much more frequently and it was better. About a month ago he started suddenly not wanting sex again. Staying up at night. I know what he’s doing I just have to be up early for work and I wake up with a pit in my stomach every day. He suddenly started having sexual dysfunction issues. Like he would initiate and then go soft. Then afterwards randomly say “I’m sorry. I do love your body” even thought we didn’t talk about my body nor was I feeling bad about it. I’m tired of carrying these burdens…his dysfunctional issues when I know he just wants other things and I’m never enough.

I’m older now but still good looking. Men give me attention everywhere I go but I’m always scared to even smile or look too long to disrespect my husband while my husband just stares at all these women…and that’s just what I see in front of me. Honestly I feel more confident now. I take care of myself and stay fit. I’m a tall lean woman. I was 135lbs and in the last 6 months started taking anti depressants due to my marriage and gained 15 pounds. Now at 150 I feel really big. Because on my frame it feels so much bigger from what I’m used to. At 135 and my height I’m used to looking pretty thin. I have large boobs and curves and a small waist and lately despite the weight gain I’ve started to enjoy my new shape. I workout so theres a good bit of muscle definition thought some of that weight gain was fat. But I just look more shapely. I want to lose the weight but I’ve also started to feel more confident and started partaking in hobbies that don’t involve physical appearance. This random comment about “I love your body” felt so weird to me. He also randomly said to me while I was standing naked getting ready to shower “you can totally lose the weight if you want to” I looked at him and he said “but I like you both ways honestly”. Then he goes soft during sex.

The women he’s oogling are mostly very fake looking or very thin. Lots of fake eyelashes. The things he says are not his type. Lots of them are wearing revealing attention seeking clothing while he polices my outfits. I tried wearing a push up bra out and he didn’t like that so I changed it. He through a major fit when I came home one day about my pants saying they gave me a camel toe and I wore them on purpose. I told him the pants felt very uncomfortable on me all day because I gained some weight and I didn’t realize when I put them on in the morning how uncomfortable they would feel all day. He claimed I wore them on purpose as if I wanted to have a camel toe visible to others. I recently went out with friends and wore a cute outfit that was dressed head to toe and he claimed it was too cute cuter than what I “wear for him at home”. He also never takes me out and I have to beg for dates for months. I honestly feel horrible to admit this…but I don’t trust him. His lack of self control with other women gives me cheater vibes.

I’ve spent the last year trying to trust him and realized that I can’t. I don’t respect how he treats me. I’m tired of feeling humiliated. We have young kids and I don’t want to break their hearts but I no longer even want to have sex with him. I feel like I’m being used. And after all these years of feeling like we were in it but t least in love he told me how he has always been “insecure about his size” and how he hears his girlfriends talk about men’s sizes and how depressing it is but how lovely I am for not being so shallow. He told me listening to his girlfriends made him”want to cry and made him realize how special I am”.

I wanted to throw up. It made me sick to my stomach. My husband is turning 40 soon. I told him have you stayed with me all this time while still chatting and flirting with women like that because you’re not actually comfortable with them about your body and basically just using me without being into me? He peddled back and claimed I misunderstood him. I then told him you don’t need to stay with me for that. Plenty of women would find you as a preference. To which he said “I don’t think any women would find me as a preference”. I don’t even know what to say to all of that. But I’m seeing that it was never love. I’ve just been used the whole time.