Need some brutal advice. Sorry if this is super long but wanted to give as much info as possible.

I am a 39m married 5 years to 37f and we have one kid. When we met we fell in love fast and have basically been together every day since. I know I know, this was my first huge mistake. We were married about a year after meeting and a kid shortly after.

I am a 6' bodybuilder, so I am usually in phenomenal shape. I have a very successful career and I WFH so I can somewhat help with my child most of the time. I am a highly involved father and take care of my child equally with my wife when I am not working. I do not drink or play video games. Fitness is my life outside my family. She is SAH mom with a small side business (more like a hobby), and I always support that. She has very few friends or hobbies outside her side business.

I lead in most aspect of our life. Finances, decisions for our child, and any other major decisions usually fall to me. We always discuss most topics but because I completely control finances I usually have final say and do what's best regardless of what she thinks.

I'm not exaggerating any of this, she would tell you the same.

Before my wife I had two tumultuous LTRs (I was young and out partying a lot) but the sex was always amazing with both. I have maintained a good relationships with both of them. I was single for a long time after the last LTR and was on the dating scene doing very well, but I wanted to start a family since I grew up in a traditional family setting.

Since the beginning the sex was blah, she doesn't give blowjobs and she was never really super affectionate. But she is a wonderful person from a great stable family and I knew she would be a good mom and that was more important to me. She is a person who will do your laundry for you or write you a sweet note and I just chocked it up to her being an "acts" love language. but she has admitted she likes the attention/chasing I do with her even if she doesn't give it back as strongly.

Now, sex is basically once or twice a month and the only affection I receive is hug and kiss in the am/pm or when i leave the house. She's extremely cold unless I am annoyingly all over her and then she'll somewhat reciprocate but I always can tell it's annoying her. We talked about it a couple times (bad mistake on my part looking back, it just made me look like a pussy begging for affection and sex) and she pretends to care for a day and then back to normal. She swears she's low libido and never cared about sex.

She comes from a long line of short term relationships with player type guys and has never been in a normal committed relationship with someone who protects and provides for her. I have a feeling her sexual interest is tied to someone making her feel like shit. I also wonder if these guys didnt stick around bc she is not good at sex and won't give blowjobs (she says she never did it for any guys, but I do take that with a grain of salt).

I found an old phone of hers and I know her password so I went on a mission to figure out why she's not sexually interested in me. I know this is bad but I'm at my last straw and needed to find someway to figure out what's going on in her head. I unfortunately found out that she was having sex with tons of guys before me and all of them were awful to her but reading how she talked she was always super into them and she talked with her friend about the sex she was having with them pretty often.

Her messages about me to her friends were always positive and she often said how hot I was. But that was at the beginning. even now outside a few normal whine about my husband texts, there was very little bad about me. But there was zero talk about our sex life.

So now I'm stuck in a marriage that is all around great except she rarely ever initiates sex, is pretty unenthusiastic about it when we do have it, and is extremely unaffectionate. I'm miserable about it and contemplating leaving or giving her the choice- we work on this part of our life or I'm out.

I know I'm not gonna talk her into wanting me more but I've tried all the "dread" strategies outside of threatening to leave. I am a well groomed jacked af handsome dude that has girls talking to me everywhere I go, so that part is already taken care of. Her friends and family always make jokes about my looks and muscles and she tells me they all tell her about how "hott" I am. she'll even say I'm the hottest guy she's ever been with (first time we talked I asked if she just wasn't into me sexually. yes I know stupid to ask but I wasn't RPed yet).

If I'm cold she's cold, so even slowly implementing that dread strategy, it doesn't work because her level of affection only gets worse. if im cold to her, then shes miserable on top of cold.

is it time to leave? If I didn't have a child with her I would have left years ago. I love her more than anything but I cannot live this way. I stay because I know my child needs me and I will not be a one weekend a month dad. If I have to be miserable till she's 18 then so be it. and part of me knows this is why my wife is like this. she knows I won't leave bc of the kid. and this is making me think leaving could be better for my child so they don't grow up thinking this is what a normal relationship looks like.

fellas, what do I do???

EDIT:

Thank you for all the links and advice. I see where I am failing as a man and plan on investing more time in myself, learning RP and not giving a fuck.