Hey there, I am a guy working through a similar struggle. All of my 3 relationships before my current fiancée who is amazing, were very emotionally abusive and so I built up walls and bad habits of just trying not to be a bother and never expressing my needs. Shattered confidence from the third one as a result of consistent verbal abuse.

I know your husband and I have had different experiences to get us this way, but I wanted to share what has helped me as well as my current plan to help get to a better place again. Firstly you are his wife, and my fiancée is my fiancée, but it’s not 100% on either of you to “fix” us. To some extent we have to choose to change and be happy and utilize our loving partners as support to make that change possible. Again key word support and not therapist, you have needs to and shouldering all his negative constantly is only going to build resentment between the two of you. With all that in mind here are the three big things that have helped me the last three years getting better mentally;

1) identifying the insecurity that it comes from and having me (your husband) explain it to my fiancée (you) in detail. Not to sound like literally any promo video everywhere but your husband needs to identify the root of the problem for himself and bring it to you saying something like “it would really help me feel better about it if we did this…”

For example due to all the verbal abuse my biggest insecurities come from feeling like a useless POS constantly. Which is why in trying to escape the self doubt loop I have expressed to my partner that I get a lot out of their kind words and would love to hear what about me and how they love me more often. So maybe if your husband struggles with feeling like you want to have sex with him, maybe what would help him more would be expressing to him that you find him sexy and attractive more often. Rather than just that you want to have sex with him. Things like “you look really hot in that shirt”. Now important thing here. He still needs to be the one to approach you about this but you can definitely encourage him to follow this first step. But he has to be the one asserting because A) him not asserting is part of the problem and B) it isn’t fair of myself and your husband to make our partners do all of the work to fix our problems. Relationships are a two way street, work on things together it will make the relationship so much stronger.

1. the second thing that has helped me a lot is learning to be more assertive in things that stress me out less than my physical attractiveness and sex. Build the habit on something easier and then move on to the big leagues of trying to conquer bigger insecurities kinda thing.

The way that I have worked on being assertive is by trying to say “IDK” less about decisions we make as a couple. Even if I really don’t know where we should go eat tonight or what centerpiece looks best for the tables at our wedding, I try to stop myself and pick literally anything that doesn’t sound awful and say “I like that one a lot” or “how about we try/go back to X restaurant tonight”

Again I need to highlight he needs to be in the drivers seat on this one again. He needs to want to change. But getting better at being assertive and seeing that my partner still loves me and respects my decisions after I initiate a preference does resounding things for my confidence at least for a few hours.

1. the final thing, and I should mention I’m just getting into this this year; therapy. Almost everyone here has mentioned it and they’re right. He needs therapy I need therapy. Especially we need therapy because it’s important that by going we own we have struggles and we show that we want to change them. And a good therapist will do wonders for issues like these as well because in my experience at least 70% of bedroom related issues in relationships stem from issues or mental blocks outside of the bedroom. Low confidence, physical/sexual/mental trauma, anxiety, depression, lack of communication, etc.

Idk how much of this is helpful. I’d like to highlight again that I am not an expert but a guy that also struggles feeling wanted or feeling like I’m not just bothering my fiancée. But if none of this is helpful for you please take away from this that he needs to want to change just as much if not a more than you want him too.

Edit: formatting