Hello, first off I am new to the community and I will try to keep this as brief as possible and give the short version. I have been married for 12 years now. My husband and I have a blended family where I came in with two kids from a previous marriage ( children's bio father is deceased) and he came in with one (was never married to step sons mom, we have visitation only). We then had one child together. However, today is not about the kids. Our kids are all getting older as we are too. Our marriage has had a lot of ups and downs in these years. Including money/job issues and infidelity on both of our parts. My issue is we are originally from the New York area when we were at a very low point in 2016 we decided we would see someone. We could not afford a counselor so we went to our Pastor from church at the time. We told each other everything and agreed to move forward, build trust and work on the marriage. Around 2017 I discovered he was still lying and was downloading single ups and meeting up with women, even though he swears things never got physical, only talked about it. I did find texts where he was asking someone if they should "meet behind the house they did last time" and giving someone ETA's as he was driving. So hard to believe he never got physical, right? In 2017 we decided what we needed was another fresh start. He had a job loss and we were not making enough money to get by anyway. We moved to the Virginia area where we both have thrived in the job market and I could not be happier with my career. However, the move was suppose to help with a fresh start for the marriage and when I got down here I was a month behind him due to kids being in school and trying to sell a home so when I came about a month after him I was here two months before I found two packs of cigarettes' in his car(he has never smoked). Also I found that more "date local singles" apps and chat apps had been downloaded on his phone. He claims that the cigarettes are from a man that he works with and so on and so forth and I never could prove anything. Finally after getting hints and smells of cigarette smoke on him and in my house I told him we had to go to a marriage counselor or I was done. As we started our sessions he did admit to the strangest thing that I have a hard time believing. That years ago he heard ppl say smoking calms nerves and he wanted his nerves calmed so he tried smoking. However he said he could not bare the actual smoke, so he claims he started lighting and watching the smoke burn the cigarette. He claims this calms him and takes all his thoughts away. The counselor seems to think this is legit but I'm not so sure. He told me then he would try to quite this strange habit but I have caught him several times since with either cigarettes' in his car or cigarette butts in the toilet when I get home because he forgot to flush. Also since neither of us have ever been smokers there are times I can smell it pretty obviously! If he is not actually smoking them then why cant he stop??? its very frustrated because he has been caught red handed multiple times and never wants to own up. He tries very hard to gaslight me in these situations because I can clearly smell or taste the smoke on him or see ashes and he always acts like I'm crazy. At this point it may seem petty to be mad over something like this but its just strange, I think he is actually smoking and maybe started to be around another woman that smoked and now cant quit, whether he is still seeing the person or not? I truly wanted a fresh start and to be happy when we made our move, I also love our current community but don't know if I can deal with this forever. How can someone claim to care about you and then want to lie to you so easily? I cannot tell anyone in my family, they are back in New York and under the impression that since the move things are going great. My father was bitter about the move and moving his grand children away so I do not want to admit fault or that I was stupid enough to believe my husband when he said this would be a fresh start. I just do not know if this is the marriage I want for the next several years. Sorry so long and feel free to ask questions if anyone wants more back story then this because there is plenty. Any advice?