Why am I accepting this?!

Long story short husband has had a porn addiction since he was a teen. We’ve been married twenty years and d day was seven months ago.

I confronted him, he admitted it and said he was glad it was brought to the light and that he hates himself for it. I had researched tons on porn addiction before confronting him, so I am well aware of the best steps for recovery…group work, csat, workbooks, podcasts, etc.

When I confronted him, I told him how devastating this was and that we would need to talk about it a lot, and I would needs lots of reassurance. I advised we both needed therapy. He has always been anti therapy because he thinks it makes you fixate on your problems and dwell on them. I told him he at least needed to read books and listen to podcasts. I told him about an accountability app and he said we can put it on every device, which is what we did.

Fast forward a few weeks and there is zero effort on his part. No books, no podcasts, no talking about it. So I bring it up tearfully, and he assures me he has zero desire to go back to it and he doesn’t want me to worry about it. Ok, real easy to do after such a betrayal, not!

Fast forward another few weeks and I send him a PBSE podcast and it goes unwatched. I was fuming because he had said I could send him something to watch. Still no effort, still no talking.

I start seeing a csat and she helps me a lot. I feel so validated. We have not been great communicators and have always pushed things under the rug. We’ve never had anything to this degree happen in our marriage, but we definitely should have been more open in the past.

Fast forward another month or so. We have a complete dead bedroom and have not had sex since October 2025, and d day was a month later. The lack of sex is what lead me to investigate possible porn use and that’s how I discovered it. I bring it up once again, the lack of sex, addiction, the disconnect and he says he feels like I hate him. He says I never reach for him etc. I tell him do you blame me?! My self worth and how I feel about myself is total shit. I tell him he chose pixels on a screen over me for our entire marriage, and completely ignored my desire for intimacy the last year ( when the disconnect and lack of intimacy started). We have a good talk, and he says to send him whatever I want him to listen to. I resend him the PBSE podcast and he listens to it the next day.

Things are pretty good between us for another month, but still zero sex. We hold hands a lot and give a peck on the lips goodnight. That’s it. He did tell me a few months ago that he thinks he broke his body because he has zero desire to. Lovely. In the last couple of months he has started initiating, but he is dealing with PE now, so it stops rather quickly.

I’m so angry that we are stuck in this roommate stage. The lack of intimacy is changing how we see each other, I feel it pretty strongly. I feel like I am the only one putting effort into a problem that I did not create. How do I dig us out of this giant hole that I didn’t dig when he won’t help?! I feel like every day is an endless loop of nothingness. We talk about bills and kids and mundane things. There is zero excitement and I feel like I hate my life. Part of me wants to tell him if you cannot fight for our marriage, then what do you expect me to do?!

I honestly don’t think he has watched porn since d day because we have truple on everything. I know it’s not foolproof and he could get another device, that’s how I discovered this in the first place. I also know white knuckling it won’t last forever. We also had a talk about self pleasuring at the advice of my csat, and I don’t believe he’s doing that, but who knows.

I guess I’m just looking for advice on what to do or say to him. I’m done being the only one trying. He thinks we are good because he stopped using it, but how can he possibly think we are good if we have a complete dead bedroom?! How can he just be okay with trying every now and then and then realizing there is an issue (the PE) and not wanting to research and try to fix it? I’ve brought it up so many times, he knows I want that part of our marriage back. I don’t want to be roommates for the rest of our marriage.

He is a genuinely good person, I truly think he wants to stay away from it and doesn’t want me to be unhappy. I just don’t know how to get through to someone who is anti therapy and who doesn’t talk about his feelings or tough subjects.