I'm (26f) not sure what to do about my husband (30m) after 8 years of semi-terrible marriage

OP here, and I wanted to say thank you all for taking the time to read and respond.

I've been living with some things for a long time, so I feel like what you all have interpreted "fetus porn" as is more horrible sounding as what it actually is, but in describing it, it feels pretty grimy. What I mean by it is hentai (cartoons or drawings, I suppose) of two or more hermaphrodite pregnant women, drawn in xray so you can see the children growning in them, and as far as I can guess, what's "erotic" about it is that you can see their penises rubbing against and ejaculating on the baby. Fetus porn was just one of the search phases he used to try and find it again after seeing it once (as he explained once later on).

I lost the child a few weeks after I found all of this, so it is just my now 7 year old daughter and my husband and I. This was in Oct of 2012, and it’s been a more minor issue every 2-4 months since then (so… a little more than 3 years now?) There were sometimes I would drive him to work and tell him how I don’t want him to look at porn at work again, and then he’d do it a few hours later, while at work). After a while, what I was comfortable with was less and less, but no matter what, he never met me half way. It is a problem to this very day (we got into an argument this morning over more porn apps that he downloaded last night that he promise not to get).

We don't own our home, we pay rent from his veteran's disability and my student loans and grants. I say that I provide the means for our home because we took over my mother’s living space (sizable enough, 3 bedrooms). My mom suffered a stroke that prevents her from continuing teaching, so I want to stay with her to help out. We'd also have no where we could afford to live without her only asking 20% what it would cost to live anywhere else.

In an effort to deliver all the negatives to describe where I am in our relationship, I may have painted my husband as more of a continuous monster than he actually is. He will do anything I ask to help out, but he'll do about 20% of the job, and is surprised when it's not enough. He feels bad about not doing enough (at least it really seems like he feels bad, but never does enough. Even with his own future: he just stopped going to classes, but never did anything that resembled working out what he would do next. And it's annoying and frustrating. He just sits around reading articles about random things all day. No googling for schools and programs in the area or anything like that. Almost like he's waiting for someone to put him somewhere and start telling him what to do next. I ended up writing half of his essays when he was trying to complete school just because he sat around until the last night and started freaking out about finishing it. After a while he told me that I should waste my effort on dragging him through school, and didn't accept my help anymore. If that describes him at all; he knows he's not doing enough on his own, but he never tries to do anything different, he just quits...

It’s confusing for me, I got married when I was 17, and I have no real idea of what is normal to deal with and overcome in a marriage, and when to bail. I know what I’ve gone through is not normal and not okay (he’s told me that he’d rather get rid of me than all porn (he doesn’t remember this), that I alone could never be enough (also doesn’t remember), that if I left and found someone better, that I’d be the disappointing person in that relationship (no recollection), that I care more and ask for more than I should, that he agrees to do things just to keep me from yelling at him mores etc,.) and I know that’s a lot of bullcrap, and I want to punch his nose into the back of his spine for saying stuff like that. But, it’s hard to commit to going on with my adult life alone when I don’t even really know what that means, all I’ve really known is this, and I feel almost like in fast forward now. Experience hurt and disappointment, then quickly get to the point where everyone is happy again… but I’m starting to feel really crazy living like this.

I don't have the resources for a lawyer, that I know of. I think I might need one, as I don't want him to have visitation rights to our child alone (I've been out to dinner with a friend once in four years, I left him to watch our child and he just ended up looking at porn outside while I was gone. Don't know how long as he tried to delete the history, but I'm not stupid enough to leave our child with him again). It just feels so confusing, and I feel like I'm being even more confusing attempting to explaining my situation in my current state of mind.

/r/relationships Thread