I am 42 yrs old, I have been with my husband for 22 years and we have 2 children aged 12 and 14 yrs. I was blissfully happy for 7 years with my husband until one day I found pictures on our desktop (2002) of a naked woman with a dildo hanging out of her with the message "wish this was your cock" she was wearing hand cuffs ( maybe a reference to him being a policeman) and upon searching his things I found a floppy disk of photos of him naked, wanking etc, photos he had sent of himself. I was literally winded with shock. This was my amazing husband, we had a 18 month old daughter and he worshipped us. I confronted him and he apologised, said he'd never met this person, it was an online thing, nothing had happened and he was so sorry. I was so hurt but this was a first offence and for the sake of our little girl, I decided to forgive him. Then a couple of months later I came home early to find him on an internet porn chat room, chatting to someone. I flipped, I packed a bag and tried to leave, he took the keys to the car, we had a blazing row, it was really ugly, but I honestly didn't know how to leave, I had no family and I had left my job to have our daughter. We were living in a house I owned, but I had no family support or financial independence etc and I really didn't want to be a single parent, working full time with a kid in childcare. I stayed, we worked things out, he was very sorry but I didn't trust him the same and I didn't love him completely like before. Time is a healer however , we had another baby, moved house etc and on a day to day basis, we get on so great, we can talk all day and night and we have always had a great sex life. 16 months ago I discovered he had £10K of debt that he had kept hidden from me (built up over a year, made up of his poor money management and overspending when he worked away) Then 14 months ago he accidently left his mobile phone at home whilst he took our son to rugby. It pinged a fb message , from an ex girlfriend of 27 yrs ago, it was chatty but not flirty, but I felt sick to my stomach. This was the girl he left his first wife for. He was with his first wife for 5 yrs before they got married, then the day after they married he got sent away for 14 weeks training with the police as a new recruit. On this course he met this new girl (she was a waitress, training to be a nurse) on that course. They had a relationship and he ended up leaving his wife. The new girlfriend dumped him after a few months. He was devastated but moved on, met someone else and was in a relationship of 2 years when the waitress looked him up out of the blue. She had been dumped and wanted a shoulder to cry on. He dropped everything including his then girlfriend to embark on another relationship with the waitress for a year until she dumped him again (by phone on the day of her graduation - she was moving on ) and left him heartbroken. I responded to her message and introduced myself. I said I was devastated that he hadn't mentioned her contact and asked if there was anything going on, she said she had looked him up 6 mths previously and they had just been chatting as friends, she was really happy that he had such a lovely wife and family and she had a great life in south east france (despite getting recently divorced !!) and just enjoyed chatting to him. I asked her to stop contacting him, said that it made me very uncomfortable and to basically fuck off and leave my family alone. I had several blazing rows with my husband and he slept in the spare room for 2 weeks. My children were ill with stress. My son in particular was vomiting in school etc and it was pure stress.
Again I thought, he hasn't actually shagged anyone, it was an emotional affair of sorts and I was devastated. Again he was sorry and wanted to make everything right. I was ill with stress. I started running to help my mental health and boy did I look good although I never felt so miserable. My husband offered anything I wanted, I could get a smaller house for me and the kids mortgage free, he would pay us maintenance etc, he wanted to work things out, he sent a long message to the waitress explaining how he regretted his contact with her, told her how fabulous I was and how great his life had been in the years since her, because of me. He told her that she had brought him nothing but misery and he never wanted to hear from her again. I resolved to try again. In the weeks that followed he gave all his passwords etc and I found a long stream of messages between him and a female work colleague, not flirty, but frequent and I felt very uncomfortable about that. I asked her outright if they had had an affair and she was horrified, she said he was her work dad and she apologised for any offence caused and promised not to message him again. I also found an old nokia brick phone with a load of very suggestive and flirty texts from a female doctor he was working with whilst policing the olympics, he claimed that she was very flirty with everyone and that her husband came out for drinks with them in the evening and that it was innocent. I just thought 'here's another one'. I told 2 close friends, One told me to go home, make love, claim your husband, he's yours. The other said let the bastard pay the mortgage, enjoy your life for 5 years looking after the kids,not working etc then leave the bastard. Over a year on, on a daily basis it's fine, but he works away a lot and I feel really uncomfortable about that. When he's at home and on his phone etc I feel really uncomfortable. 2 months ago I found out that he had posted naked pictures of me on a porn site. I felt sick. He explained that sometimes when he is down he goes on porn websites and looks at the readers wives section and this particular time he had posted pictures of me (you couldn't tell it was me) but I felt this was an abuse of trust. I told him i'd had enough. It was over and I had the house valued etc. But I cannot bring myself to end it. I have no solid proof of a physical affair but I don't trust him anymore. He is a great dad to the kids and we have a lovely home and lifestyle etc but I am so alone. He is the only family I have ever known and I have been with him all my adult life. I look in the mirror and I am ashamed of the fact that I accept this situation. I fear for the pain that a separation will cause my children. I am 12 years younger than my husband, I am attractive and I have been a great wife and frankly I do not deserve this. What do you advise??