What to do?

Welcome to the forum. Leaving him was one of the best things you could have done. He would never have made any progress while you stayed with him. Addicts like the status quo and need a drastic action to wake them up. Leaving him, even temporarily, restores power to you.

Many addicts do not believe they have a problem. Some might acknowledge they have a bad habit but very few view it or understand it as an addiction. Many of us have tried the I'll-do-it-my-way method and failed. An addict needs some humility to understand they do not have all the answers. It is impossible for an addict to fix themselves just as it is impossible for a surgeon to operate on themselves. They need to see a therapist, or work with a program, or read/educate themselves on what they need to do to change.

You can walk away at any time guilt-free. You are not obligated to stay and fix him. The addict needs to take primary responsibility for their recovery. You do not have to sit there and watch him stumble through one relapse after another while he tries to figure it out. That will only injure you further. He should view any chances you give him as a gift. Your primary responsibility is to fix yourself and heal your wounds. An addict who is actively working on themselves might be given a little leeway, but until he show that he is taking concrete steps to get better then reserve your sympathy.

I hope you find the answers you need in order to move forward.

 

Hey, so I am very sorry to hear your situation. My partner never told me I was not attractive, in fact I had the opposite, him loving my looks and he admitted to, in the beginning of the relationship looking at parts rather than me as a person. That truly sucked to hear. Our intimacy was ok I guess, but it was far from amazing.

The thing that made my fiance wake up was seeing me break down when I found out everything. I literally looked through a year of his history it took me hours and for hours that day I was balling, texting him what I found, and he came home and I was on the floor crying, honestly I wanted to die in that moment because the pain was so immense. So did he. After that break down he never went back.

Anything you do is a gift if you stay. I told my fiance that if he could not do the following things then I am leaving for good. I told him he had to be 100% honest, no PMO, and get a therapist, if those 3 simple things couldn't be done there was no hope or reason for me to stay. He heard me loud and clear and got into therapy.

I don't know if you guys have had that breaking point or rock bottom but some addicts need to hit rock bottom before they change. It took my fiance almost losing me and seeing me suicidal to get him to realize what he did (I told him prior to being in a relationship I couldn't have porn in a relationship due to my anorexia).

So I'll be honest, and some addicts might hate what I say, but you have the power. I didn't exploit my power so to speak, but I asserted myself and didn't let him walk all over me. This was the 8th incident of catching things (the first 5 were very small and strange things that made me uncomfortable, and the last 3 were porn).

You have every right to walk away if you wish. You also have every right to assert yourself because you deserve to be treated well. If you need him in therapy to stay in the relationship tell him. If he can't do it, then move on because he doesn't deserve you. That may sound tough, but honestly, if I hadn't given my fiance tough love after D-day we wouldn't have made it. I think it also made him respect me more because I stood up for myself (which was incredibly hard).

I hope you figure out what you want to do, and I hope people here can help you by being supportive!

 

Everything that has been said here seems completely reasonable - there's only one thing I would like to add.

None of us can tell you if you have a diamond in the rough or a lump of coal. I've been with my wife for 20 years and I was replacing intimacy with her for porn for 4 or 5 of those early in the relationship, after the initial passion wore off. Not as bad as your situation - we did have an active sex life - but I wasn't really into it because I preferred porn for a variety of addiction and emotional reasons. We had lots of problems, it was complicated, just like all relationships.

I'd like to think we were both diamonds in the rough though. We persevered and we now have an amazing marriage. We both still struggle but we have grown incredibly close and are very intimate and loving in our sex life. Sometimes these things take time.

All I'm saying is sometimes, not always, a porn addict can turn out to be everything you ever hoped for. I don't know - but maybe your heart can tell you if he's worth it or not.