Be prepared for a long one here.
I never felt validated by my family or society growing up. I also never learned to properly validate myself. Because of this, I tended to try and numb/fill the pain with lots of things. Sometimes it was material things, sometimes it was porn and masturbation, and other times it was doing whatever I could to fit in either by becoming the person people wanted me to be or intentionally making myself the outsider. I also have sexual abuse in my history and can't give additional details here on that.
I took on the mantle of my previous Catholic religion as my external identity even though I internally couldn't live up to those expectations. While I was obsessed with porn, masturbation, and avoiding responsibility in school etc, I was also deeply invested in my faith, learning all the reasons behind the teaching and annoyingly giving the appearance that I was a good little Catholic teen/man.
This was the image my ex-wife had fallen in love with. She also had her own issues and we became co-dependent upon each other. I tried to keep up my appearances of being a "nice guy" but also felt like she validated and completed me. In some ways I used her to show off in front of my friends by making out with her, bragging about how hot she was, etc. I also still selfishly focused a lot on talking about myself, but trying not to make any decisions that would potentially upset her, meaning she had to make a bunch of decisions she didn't want to.
We ended up making out and getting physical without actual sex quite a bit. My only regrets about that are the guilt my religion made me carry about it and the fact that it was partially about validation and not entirely about connection.
She actually converted to Catholicism only for me to confess to my porn/masturbation addiction a couple of months before we got married. It was devastating to her and she felt like because we were so close to the wedding, she wasn't going to call it off.
After we were married I ended up staying off porn and masturbation for many years. My ex kind of replaced those coping methods, which is sad in many ways. But, I still was trying to be the perfect Catholic too, which meant all sorts of restrictions in the bedroom. No oral to completion, anal completely off the table, no normal forms of birth control (although there are arguably advantages in Natural Family Planning) etc. I also really had an anger issue when I got something wrong or couldn't figure out what she wanted. I would blame her instead of blaming myself. I found what "worked" in sex to bring her to orgasm first and then we would have sex. It became very mechanical in that regard because anything I didn't know how to do hurt my fragile ego.
My ideas of family and church participation were completely driven by my faith and not by my own thought. If it had to do with my ideal image of living or the churches ideals, I fought hard and stubbornly for my viewpoint. Anything else, I didn't have an opinion on and basically made my ex the decision-maker by default. I also got jealous when she wanted to go and do things on her own or with our son when he was born. I'd get frustrated when they "got to go out" and I didn't, etc. Again, typical egotistical and shallow behavior on my part.
When we got past the honeymoon phase, I began to obsess over sex. There wasn't enough of it (arguably true, but for reasons), I would nag about it all the time, and I still saw it as a method of validation. My ex later stated that she would take long walks sometimes just to avoid coming home and hearing me complain or ask about sex. She never wanted to have sex because the sex was shit, made her feel used, and was with a person who had no soul or personality while giving the appearance of being a good Catholic.
Catholicism also drove additional unhealthy obsessions such as me thinking that she might be dressing "too sexy" at times. But at the same time I wanted her to dress sexy and be available FOR ME. It was just all-around bad. Whenever my ex would mention questioning the Church's views on something, I would get VERY defensive, after all, the Church is 2000+ years old, who am I to question my core beliefs that I don't actually believe in but have been told to because I accepted the faith as a personality and not just as a background idea?
I saw our son as a competition when he was born. I complained that HE got all the attention. My selfish co-dependent brain couldn't understand why he was more important than my own needs/wants. I've done a LOT of damage as a father because of that. However, I'm working to make up for that by being there for him now and encouraging his creativity and passions.
About a year ago, my ex came to the realization of all of this and more that I won't confess here. When faced with the truth, I couldn't deny my past. If I did, I'm pretty sure it would prove that I was truly a narcissist or sociopath. I've been in therapy since that time, participated in a sex addiction 12-step program for about 6 months, stepped away from the rules and regulations of religion, and joined an online men's group focused on addressing "Nice Guy" behaviors. We were divorced in March of this year.
I'm still trying to figure out who I actually am, what I like, and how to be authentic to myself. I'm trying to figure out what "happy" looks like for me. I'm trying to heal my own wounds so I don't hurt others or see them as validation in the future. I have a deep fear of dating right now, both from a "who could accept the person I am and the past I was" and a "shit, I don't want to hurt anyone like that again" perspective.
This forum has helped me in many ways, specifically around accepting my own sexual nature and that there are healthy and normal ways of being in touch with it. A book that greatly helped me is No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover. My therapist helped me to see that I do not have a narcissistic personality disorder but that I was controlling and narcissistic because I never learned how to deal with things outside of that framework as a child. Essentially, I still had the self-centered child view of the world instead of an adult's.
It's hard to separate feelings of loneliness from a desire for sex. It's hard to separate my anxiety around things I don't necessarily want to do from a desire to veg out looking at porn. But, it is a process, and one I'm sure that many people here can resonate with.
While this is partially an attention-seeking pity-post I also just wanted to get this story/confession out there. I also wanted to post this as a warning. If you see these attitudes and behaviors in yourself, PLEASE go get help. I couldn't or wouldn't see them. I knew I had some "anger issues" at times and was "selfish" at times but didn't see the full picture until it was too late. Don't wait for it to be too late to heal a relationship by looking at yourself with unblinded eyes. If I would have been willing to see all these things earlier in life, things would be very different.