angry & lonely (may contain triggers)

Part 1
I am a female for full disclosure.
I am new here & I joined bc my bf is a P addict.
I am looking for understanding friends during this difficult time.
Ill try to keep this as short as possible...
My boyfriend and I have had a lot of problems. And each of them were quite a battle. But he has really tried to change and be better in recent months. He has improved in so many ways. He is a good man. And he is really trying. In a lot of ways. Except for with his Porn addiction. I hate to complain about one thing when he has gotten better about so many other things. This just really eats me up sometimes and i dont want it to ruin what we have both fought so hard for. We have a really good relationship now. Except for his porn addiction. He is a good man and i have no desire to make him look bad. Which is why ive never talked to anyone about this... Im hoping you all can understand and not judge either of us badly. Im just here for support.
When we met and first started dating, he told me he rarely watches porn and that he doesnt really watch it when he is in a relationship at all. Unless, like he and his SO werent going to be able to see each other for a long time due to one being out of town for a long time or something type of thing. I believed him & entered into a relationship with him thinking he rarely if ever watched P...
In the beginning our sex life was amazing. I have a very high drive so i loved it.
Then it stopped. As soon as the newness wore off, it became less and less frequent until it mostly stopped. When i (eventually) asked him about it (after trying everything i could think of to "help") he gave me this big speech that made me feel super guilty for putting too much emphasis on the importance of sex in a relationship... said that sex shouldnt matter... etc etc...
So i felt bad. For the next about 6 months after i tried to convince myself not to want sex so much. He made me feel like maybe i wanted it too much and was wrong for feeling that way. After about 6 months i approached him again. I explained that for me a big part of a relationship is being intimate with my partner. He then told me that the truth is, he just has a super low sex drive. I reminded him that when we started dating, we had a LOT of sex... he told me its always like that when he is with someone new, but then he goes back to how he usually is. He said he really only wants sex every 9 months or so and that he has always been this way.
I was surrpised. Id never been with a man with such low of a drive before and i knew it would take some getting used to for me. So i then spent the next year trying to focus on our relationship, without the sex. He said it made him feel pressured if i pushed the subject so I left it alone. I didnt pressure him at all, I told him to just come to me whenever he felt ready to have sex. I figured he was right, that maybe sex shouldnt be that important, and i love him more than sex so that was okay if he didnt want to have sex.
Well eventually we moved in together and we have lived together ever since. We now have a house.
I soon noticed that (this may sound weird, sorry) he often had sex dreams. Like, an excessive amount of sex dreams. Over and over. All night. Every night. One would stop. Few minutes later, the next would start. It is like he is on a loop. I thought it was odd for someone who never wants sex but whatever u cant control your dreams... although, it makes it very hard to fall asleep next to him.

 

Part 2
Well, after another year or so i caught him in MANY lies & things sort of came to a head and we almost broke up. He said he wanted to fix things and he didnt want to give up on us, so we had a big talk. He admitted to (Im paraphrasing) being a pathological liar. He told me that he had basically been lying to me about almost everything since we had met.
Honesty is huge for me. Trust is huge for me. He knows that. I told him that when we first met.

I told him the only way we could stay together was if he told me the truth about everything he had lied about and if he swore to never lie to me about anything ever again. He swore to God and swore on everyrhing that he would never lie again. We talked all night... Almost everything i knew was a lie, in a lot of ways I felt like i was living with a stranger.
After coming clean about everything and swearing never to lie to me again, we decided to stay together. We felt stronger from it.
I asked if there was anything else. He told me there were 3 things but that i wouldnt like them. One of them was that he is addicted to porn. He told me that the truth is that he actually has a super high sex drive, he just prefers to M to P than to have sex with another person. He said sex is "messy" amd that he lied about the every 9 months thing and that he actually watches porn at least 3-4 times a day (even at work) sometimes but minimum once every day. So all that time i was abstaining from sex while he actually wanted it all the time. He said he tried to convince me i wanted it too much and was putting too much emphasis on the importance of sex bc he didnt want to tell me the truth. That he just didnt want to have sex with me. Or with anyone. Just himself. He told me he has been addicted since he was very young, like 11, and that he would get help and we could go to couples counseling together.
I was shocked. I thought he was like non sexual...
When i asked him about the counseling about a month later he became extremely defensive and yelled at me that he doesn't have a problem and that theres nothing wrong with it. He told me all men do it and i need counseling if im too insecure to deal with it.
That was about 3 years ago.
He never made any effort to stop or get help. It is just something i have to accept and live with.
Every time ive tried to talk to him about it, he gets super defensive and lashes out at me and says more hurtful things that make it worse.
We still have a ton of intimacy problems because of his porn addiction. But we cant talk about it. He wont stop. I feel like we have a dont ask dont tell policy. He does what he wants while i pretend like i dont know about it.

 

Part 3
And most of the time that works for us.
I am grateful for all of the other things that have gotten better. Most days, i just try to focus on that. Every day i think about how far weve come and how much better we are now compared to before.
But all the mean things he has yelled at me the times ive tried to talk to him about the porn and our lack of sex echo in my head. It wears me down and every so often i have nights like this when it gets so loud that i cant not think about it. The echos like whispers that i constantly push to the back of my head become screams and i cant sleep.
Im lonely. Im SO LONELY. He is my best friend, but i dont even feel like a woman anymore. I feel like im being punished. Being in a practically sexless relationship bc he would rather have sex without me. He wont even let me watch it with him to be included. Its like our sex lives have to be 100% separate from each other. Like i have to be excluded from his private party and im just alone. I hate it.

 

I miss him and i just wish we had sex more often. I crave intimacy. Im so tired of rejection. First he told me it pressured him if i pushed for sex so i backed off... then he told me i didnt initiate enough! Ever since then its just been me coming onto him and him giving me every excuse imaginable. He always has a headache or is tired or his stomach is upset. Ive been turned down more times than i can keep track. Its humiliating. The constant rejection is really tearing down my self esteem. And ive tried backing off and playing hard to get and he didnt care. He just wants to watch porn constantly by himself. He said we are responsible for making ourselves happy. But i dont want to have to M while im in a relationship. That takes away from the relationship. So i just have no i timacy in mu life at all. Except every 6-9 months when he warches porn first then comes to me to finish.
I used to love sex.

 

I just dont want this to continue to get worse. I feel like there is a wedge between us that is silently getting bigger and bigger. Im starting to resent him. I feel neglected. And on days like this all the stuff he has told me starts to really f with my head. All of the mean things he said. Idk how im supposed to feel. I google stuff to try to find other people who feel like i do to see if im normal.

 

I guess for me its one thing if he just didnt want sex at all. But he wants it. Just alone.
Do any other partners feel this way?

 

This is a complex situation that has occurred over a very long period of time. I tried to make this as short as possible but it is still quite lengthy even with leaving out a lot. I apologize if this is a time-consuming read. I had to include enough to explain the situation and where im coming from.
I just feel rejected in every way. I dont feel sexy at all now. I pretend like i do but inside i dont. I hate looking at myself in the mirror now. I havent told anyone i feel this way. But i avoid mirrors. Whenever i try to cuddle with him while we watch tv together he always tells me his stomach is upset. Its like he is completely detached and doesnt even realize it. And i feel like im just left out in the cold. No one understands. All of his friends think watching porn and going to strip clubs is cool and is part of being a man and its their right and it has nothing to do with anyone else. Not even their SO. Porn has become so acceptible that i feel like most people view it as a right that all adults have. As something all healthy ppl do and that the rest of us are flawed if we dont. But when it replaces all or most other intimacy, it hurts the one that is faithful to you.
Im trying to move one but i feel like he had an affair, and then refused to stop the affair. I push it out of my head but its always there in the background and some nights i cant turn it off. Like, when he first told me about it i asked what types he watches and he told me he usually searches keyword perfect. For the last few years every time i hear the word perfect that is where my mind goes and it makes me hate myself.

 

For a long time i tried making him his own custom porn. But that didnt help. He just had more mean things to say and eventually i stopped making it.
I even tried doing all of his fantasies, and some were harder than others, but i did all of them and as soon as i did he changed what "does it for him".
He says he is still sexually attracted to me. But it sure doesnt feel like it on my end.
I would even be ok with watching it with him and M him at least we would be intimate together. But he wont go for that. I have to be excluded entirely.
Now every time i get horny im starting to get mad at him bc i just have to deal with it bc he is in a committed relationship with a million other perfect women.

 

@Almost Married THANK YOU SO MUCH

 

I just dont want to be harsh with my words or judgmental. I dont think he's militiously doing any of this. I actually believe his mind is so polluted at this point that he is 100% oblivious to what is happening. Not only will he not listen to me if i try to talk to him about it, but he cant see it for himself anymore. At that one point when he told me the truth, he seemed to have some clarity and i still remember the look on his face. He told me something that shattered my world, my heart, and my trust but at that moment it seemed like it hurt him too. He hasnt shown that since... as soon as he considered stopping, he aggressively defended his beloved P, and lashed out towards me, and has so ever since. But for a moment i could tell its been a problem that he kept a secret for most of his life. And i felt bad for him bc i love him. But it has since been my problem, and ever since my deep dark secret that ive had to keep all this time until now. Not like i can discuss this with any of our friends or Family... idk. Im not sure what to say or how to word my thoughts on any of this... i dont want to offend anyone. Im a very understanding person. Im just really hurting inside right now and idk how to deal with it anymore. If he made an effort to stop like he said he was going to i think i could get past it. But to just continue... im commited to a relationship that i dont get any intimacy out of. So its like im alone. In a lot of ways. Maybe im putting too much emphasis on the importance of sex and intimacy again. Maybe i need to sleep. But i cant.
I was just raised differently than this. Like, in my family women dont withhold sex from their husbands. Like, ever. Bc that is who youre supposed to be intimate with. And theyre supposed to be intimate with you. So its kinda cruel its like youre withholding love when that person agreed not to get love anywhere else.... so ive always wanted sex with my partner. Its a hard pill for me to swallow that his P usage completely replaced sex with me. It would still be a potential problem (now that i better understand how our brains on P works) if he was supplementing with P, but i could deal with that. But he didnt supplement, he replaced. When i have always wanted him. I never turned him away or did anything to make him not want sex with me... and he knew it would be like this. Bc he was addicted before we met, he just lied until i was in love with him then dropped the bomb and never tried to get better

 

Thank You SO MUCH.

The brutal honesty was (mostly) from him... thats one of the thoughts that echo in my head on nights like this. That one day when he was honest and told me the truth about everything and admitted his P addiction, he told me that the times when we did have sex that he was watching porn first and then rushed to me and kept thinking about it while we had sex to finish.

... Thats why i have to push these memories to the back of my mind constantly. Its hard not to become angry when i remember the truth. Denial is the only thing that keeps the peace. I hate it. I would never do this to anyone.

Thank you so much for your response. I cant tell you how much i truly appreciate it, or how much it means to me.

Ive been reading and searching for other posts from partners of addicts all night. Theyve helped a lot but so far i havent come across anyone else whose partner just will not try to stop at all. Fortunately, all of the other couples ive read about so far seemed to have been blessed to have found this site, and the addicts are at least trying to get help. Mine wont. He doesnt want to stop. Not yet.

But, its my first day. Maybe i just havent found those people yet. I will keep looking.

Im so happy you were able to get better. Its so refreshing seeing all of the men on here. It gives me hope. Ive been really losing faith in mankind lately with all of this... so many people just justify it, now. "All men do it. Dont be a prude." Ive heard that and read that SO MANY times, it makes me want to scream... And so many people dont want to admit the problems bc P causes bc they themselves dont want to give it up. Ive felt so alienated for so long like i was this crazy person imagining problems with something trivial... it feels like the majority these days defends it like its nothing & harmless while its destroying us. This entire community here warms my heart. I am blessed to be welcomed here.

I love your response. I keep re-reading it. Its encouraging and comforting.

I love your Lord of the Rings analogy.

Thank You for your kindness.