Should I give up on my 5 year marriage?
I’m starting to question if my relationship can be saved, and I’d really appreciate some outside perspective. For context, I’m 24F and my husband is 24M.
My husband spends most of his free time playing video games. He gets home around 9:30pm, chats with me for about 30 minutes, and then plays games until 2am. We wake up at the same time, but he spends a lot of time lying down in the shower (he’s always showered this way). Because of this, we don’t get ready together or spend any time together in the morning.
Around the house, he doesn’t help much. He leaves clothes and dishes lying around, doesn’t do his own laundry, and his clothes have been piling up for months—he’s almost out of clean clothes. He also doesn’t use body soap at all, saying it’s unnecessary.
On his days off work, he refuses to leave the house with me or spend any time together. Instead, he spends the entire day playing video games.
When I try to have any conversation about our relationship, even if it’s not negative, it often escalates. From the beginning of our relationship, he’s told me to shut up and called me annoying, and now it’s gotten worse. He’s said he hates me, that I’m ruining his life, and that he wants me out of his life. He’s told me he doesn’t enjoy spending time with me and that everything we do together is a sacrifice because he’d always rather be playing video games. He says I should just be happy he’s physically in the house, even if we never spend time together.
When I’ve asked if we can talk and figure out a way to compromise on spending more time together, he’s said our relationship is exactly how he wants it and that I need to “get on board and shut up” because nothing is going to change. He’s also admitted to being mean to me on purpose when I bring up our relationship as a way to punish me and get me to stop talking about it.
I also discovered one day, when I went to search something on his gaming laptop in the basement, that he had been watching porn after we both agreed not to because I told him I considered it cheating. When I confronted him, he admitted that he stopped watching it for two weeks after I asked but then went back to his “routine” of watching porn daily—a habit he’s had since he was 12 (12 years now). This means he’d been watching it the entire 5 years we’ve been together, despite our agreement. Later, I also found out that two years into our relationship, he had gotten OnlyFans and had been using it for two years. This was especially upsetting because I had made it clear that OnlyFans was completely off the table.
When I confronted him about the porn, he told me it was something I needed to work through being upset about on my own. He also claimed that he quit watching porn cold turkey when I found out about it four months ago, but I’m struggling to believe or trust him.
Our sex life is also an issue. He only wants to have sex with me about once a week, but I have a high libido and would like to have sex every day or at least multiple times a week. I’ve expressed this to him multiple times, but nothing has changed, and our sex life hasn’t improved.
I feel so hurt and frustrated, and I’m not sure what to do. Is this something that can be fixed, or am I wasting my time trying to make it work? Should I leave?
TL;DR: I (24F) feel neglected and disrespected in my marriage to my husband (24M). He prioritizes video games over spending time with me, doesn’t help around the house, and refuses to compromise on our relationship issues, saying he likes things as they are. He admitted to breaking our agreement not to watch porn (including using OnlyFans for 2 years) and dismisses my feelings, saying I need to get over it on my own. Our sex life is unfulfilling despite my efforts to communicate. I’m hurt, frustrated, and unsure if this relationship can be fixed or if I should leave.