My wife made humiliating comments to me for over a year to get an intimate enhancing procedure, feeling betrayed and alone (intimacy related)

TL;DR: My wife pressured me with humiliation for over a year to get an intimate enhancing cosmetic procedure (appreciative, not performance-related), later says her comments weren’t real and came from anxiety. I want to love her as much as I did before but I don’t know how. Divorce not an option.

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This is my first post and I’m doing it out of a place of desperation. Bit of a mess, sorry. Dont even know if this is the right place to post it.

Due to some experiences growing up, I had a lot of trouble accepting my body and being vulnerable with someone else about it. I specifically felt like I needed to marry someone who could value me intimately, more specifically, who could love and appreciate my privates which have given me anxiety for years. Of course, I put in the work and time to become this supportive person for someone else as well, as creating a loving family has always been my most important goal.

I met my wife during the pandemic and she was the absolute best thing that ever happened to me. After dating for a while and seriously considering marrying each other, I brought up my anxious concerns regarding my member and how it was important for me to feel accepted and safe with the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I grew up in a conservative and traditionally religious community so my only intimate interactions would be with her, after marriage.

She at first handled it very compassionately. I described what the source of my anxiety was, that I recognized that society and childhood experiences had indeed twisted my mind about masculinity and baseline requirements for a man to be valued intimately, and that while I was actively navigating that, I did not want to feel rejected or disrespected in my marriage. We discussed specifics about my body that gave me anxiety, and basically she said that my body was nothing to worry about and instead exactly what she wanted.

We get married, and the first two months intimacy was perfect. We both felt safe and loved. However, during the third month she started making comments about my body that really triggered my anxiety. Commenting negatively on my size. She seemed troubled about it, and also about the fact that she was making the comments in the first place, which was confusing to me, so I simply tried to talk about it with her as calm and lovingly as I could. Things did not get better, as she simply kept pointing out things she disliked about my privates for no practical reason. This was very hurtful to me, but I do believe communication is the key to problem solving, so I forced myself to keep talking about it. She wasnt too great of a communicator herself though, looking back probablt due to how overwhelming her anxiety must have been, and the conversations did not flow.

During the next year the comments grow increasingly more humiliating to me. That my body doesn’t “do anything for her,” that she wants me to look in pants like an obviously well-endowed friend of ours, that some insulting phrases that I won’t rewrite here came to her mind when she saw me uncovered. Keep in mind, I am aware of the unrealistic standards of porn, and I am also aware that my anxiety comes from a place of body dysmorphia that while is my responsibility to handle, would be part of my shared vulnerability within marriage.

Also, I should mention, the context of this is appreciation, and is not performance-related.

Anyway. During that year the comments grew in humiliation, but she never directly said that she wanted me to be bigger. Until August of 2023, when we sat down and she said that directly. I felt devastated. She said she wanted me to get a cosmetic procedure to enhance my body. All I ever wanted since I met her was to please her, love her and earn her love back. And due to our beliefs and community, separation is not really an option unless our entire social structure crumbles.

So I got the procedure done. Afterwards she still says Im not enough, which was to me a sign that the problem may not be all that clear even at that point. We decide to change therapists and the new one helped her realize over the course of another year that everything she said and did to me came from a place of anxiety disorder and response to her own childhood trauma which she was unaware of. This trauma is not regarding SA or anything of the sort, as she had no exposure to any sort of sexual activity or content before marriage (again, conservative community). It was regarding verbal and manipulative mistreatment by her mother.

After months of therapy she comes to me apologizing for all the degrading comments and says that she doesnt want me to have that procedure anymore and that she does value me as we originally talked about. That nothing that she said was true, and that it came from her anxiety disorder. I find this incredibly and genuinely hard to believe as the humiliation was nonstop, and all of her compassion towards me left during that year, even when I cried and told her directly her words were devastating to me. That compassionate love is returning but Im too hurt.

I appreciate all the effort she put into getting better with her anxiety and as a human, and her apologies, but the damage to my self esteem has been enormous. Shes wonderful in every other aspect. However, I carry feelings of humiliation, depression, disappointment and resentment that I honestly don’t know how to handle. Already tried therapy for over a year and it hasnt worked yet. Last week i thought that the only thing that would give me peace again would be to continue doing the procedure in case anything comes up again that may attack my self esteem. I realize this may not be the healthiest option, but damn, its the only one that let me breathe. I want to love her as much as I did before but I don’t know how. Thanks for reading my bit of a mess, sorry.

Edit: Thank you all so much for stopping by and giving me your compassionate perspectives, i found genuine help and support here. Definitely a win for the internet haha, thanks again 🙏🏻