Help me understand my husband

My 4yo has been having trouble with bedtime. We never sat next to him when he was little because we were too much of a distraction and he never went to sleep. But he did ok on his own. Lately, he's been taking 1-2 hours to get to sleep. We've done everything: reminders, bribes, threats, you name it. We know that if he's just still for a few minutes, he'll go to sleep.

So the other night I decide to try sitting with him again since he's old enough now to understand. And it worked! I kept giving him reminders, mostly ignoring his talking, rubbed his back, and he was asleep within 20 minutes. I told my SO and he just said, "Oh, cool."

Last night I tried again, same thing, asleep within 20 minutes. SO did, "What did you do?" I told him and he said, "I don't want him to get reliant on us sitting with him." And I told him "Ok, so what do you think we should do? Keep yelling at him for two hours?" "No, I didn't know what to do, but I don't want him to get dependent on the backrubs. And there's no guarantee his teachers will do that." He does that a lot, by the way, say he doesn't like something but doesn't offer any solutions either.

I'm still going to rub LO's back tonight because it works. If he has a problem with it, he can put LO to bed and I won't lift a finger to help if he stays awake.

Edit: RIP my inbox! Seriously, thank you for all of the perspectives and solidarity. I think Wyatt will work for me in this situation is to acknowledge his concern, let him know that bedtime is hard and I look forward to being able to spend time together without worrying about whether lo is asleep, and that I welcome his solutions.