On Friday night I found out that my husband has been cheating on me.
He had dropped his old phone in the bathroom. Normally if I saw his phone lying around I'd ignore it (I would never consider snooping, and I thought we had a very open, trusting relationship), but it was his old phone (he had a new one in November last year), so I was surprised to see it at all, and when I picked it up the screen flashed on, showing his texts. Again, this was surprising as the top one showed he'd been texting this week, despite him telling me he had cancelled his contract. I opened them and saw that he was having an extremely elicit conversation with someone called 'Ems', in which he was saying things like he wanted to be with her, and how sexy she is etc.
When I came out of the bathroom I handed him his phone and let him know what I'd seen. It was bedtime, and told him he could sleep on the sofa. He followed me into the bedroom crying and pleading with me to listen to him, that he wanted to talk to me about it, that he was so sorry... I told him I was exhausted and didn't want to talk about it until I'd had some sleep.
We have a two week old baby and a two and half year old toddler.
Because we've just had a baby, this weekend has been manic with people coming to see us/ visiting family/ church etc, so we still haven't talked about it.
I'm heartbroken, completely devastated. But we now have two children together, we've been married seven years, we have just put our house on the market and are looking at buying our dream family house. Two days later, after not talking about it, I'm wondering if I'm ridiculous to consider letting it go and staying with him. He is such an amazing father, and the idea of our family being broken up is almost unbearable.
I should mention that when I was pregnant with our oldest, he did a similar thing - he joined a dating site and started messaging a woman. His brother found out and gave him a good talking to, which seemed to sort him out til now. It's a worrying pattern of behaviour, but AIBU to stay despite it?
AIBU?
... to not leave my husband?
welcometouniversallychallenged · 06/03/2016 17:41
You know you're giving him the green light to fuck whoever he likes now...
Surely it depends on whether he's actually had an affair with 'Ems'and others ?
I appreciate you're fucking knackered but if you let this go without kicking him metaphorically round the block then surely he will just keep cheating?
I would expect him home every minute he's not at work for months to pull his weight in the family - that will leave no time for fucking Ems. (Unless she's at work and he's doing her in the loo?) - these are things you need to know.
And he's a fucking arsehole doing this with a little baby around
Thank you for your replies - this is genuinely helpful!
To answer some questions:
I didn't post in relationships because I hardly ever use mums net (a bit of a lurker) and this is the only section I've ever been in 
I'm quite sure it's cheap thrills from anonymous women. I also don't think he's ever met the woman he's texting, mainly because I can't see how or when he could have done that. He has no social life, and after I became pregnant took on the lion share of looking after our toddler, so takes him to nursery and picks him up every day. So I don't think he's actually physically cheated iykwim. Does that change things? I still feel betrayed.
An extra piece of info: during the pregnancy I became quite depressed, and have been suffering from anxiety attacks for several months. I haven't been easy to live with for some time now, and I am aware of this! I know in a way I've pushed him away. I also know that this does not excuse his behaviour.
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It's still cheating, physical or not. I actually think the deceit is worse than any sex that might have happened 
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