Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Four days ago, I caught my husband cheating. I want to give a bit of backstory first for better understanding.

My husband and I have been married for just over 5 years. Please hold judgment, but he was married when we started seeing each other. He and his wife hadn’t lived together in 5 years, and we had a 3 year relationship prior to getting married.

He was my absolute best friend when we got married. We have children from previous marriages as well as children together. He got a promotion at work just before we had our youngest child, and it went to his head in a bad way. We moved 2 hours away from home. He became arrogant, a work-o-holic. He was the boss and he loved being over everyone.

It caused problems in the marriage: distance, disconnect, depression. There were rumors of affairs but I never had that “gut feeling” that it was true. I begged for years for his attention and affection, only to be met with resentment and guilt.

Fast forward, he loses his job and we move back home. The very job that I begged him to stop putting before his family for two years. As I “healed” a bit from being home and in my normal surroundings, I became cold and resentful. I talked of divorce and separation and became very distant with my thoughts.

Trigger warning: self harm. My teenage daughter started cutting herself. She claims it to be 100% because she saw how he spoke to me and her sisters and couldn’t take the emotional pain any longer, so used physical pain as an outlet to cope.

Okay, all caught up. Four days ago, I have no idea what came over me, but I went through his phone while he was in the shower. That isn’t something I normally do. There’s a girl that just started working with him who is notorious for being with married men. I did ask him to avoid her if it wasn’t professional. However, they had been texting. While it could be perceived as “innocent flirting,” it left the door open for more. Bottom line, 0% of their texts were work related.

That isn’t the worst part. He had also downloaded WhatsApp and was talking to a girl that he had saved under a man’s name, playing it off as a male coworker. They were talking every day, life problems, good mornings, hurry up and come home, etc. A full blown “emotional” relationship.

When he got out of the shower and realized I had his phone, he snatched it from me and told me to quit being childish. That is out of character for him. I got the phone back and told him I wanted to know who she was and he stood over me - every time I tried pulling the phone from behind my back he would go for it, trying to get it back.

At this point, my 3 year old daughter has woken up and is sitting in my lap. I had been crying, so she began crying. He kept asking for the phone back and I kept saying if he would just tell me who she was I would give it back. He refused.

I got up, holding my daughter, and started walked towards another bathroom in the house. I intended to lock myself in there and find her name. He started chasing me, so I started running. My daughter and I made it to the bathroom but he was pushing against the door with all his might. My toes were under the door, and I was screaming and crying for him to stop because he was breaking my toes - and our 3 year old was standing there crying.

I realized how distraught she was, so I reached for her and he pushed through the door and pried his phone from my hands and left. When I text letting him know he had almost broken my toes to protect whatever this is, he responded coldly “I’m sorry about that. I had to get to work.”

He never reached out to apologize or check on me or explain. So I finally decided to call. At first it was all blame shifting, “I thought we were done.” “You seemed like you hated me.” Since then, he has been apologetic and begged me to stay with him, saying over and over how much he loves me and he was just freaking out that morning because he was scared he was about to lose everything.

Now, here are my issues/questions:

1. Do I stay? I do love him and he has been my best friend for a long time. We have children together, a home, a life, etc.

2. Do I leave? Can I ever trust him? Every time his phone goes off or he isn’t home, my stomach sinks. I have intrusive thoughts all day, “Has he done this before?” “How many others have there been?” “Will he ever do it again?”

3. I am angry. So angry. While I was battling demons within myself, demons that he initially caused, he cheated. I feel like he abandoned me in our most vulnerable time and when I actually needed him the most.

4. On the other hand, I want to melt in his arms and let him fix it. I love him. I adore him. I crave him. It’s like the only person who can heal me is the person who hurt me.

Any and all help/advice/similar stories are welcome. Thank you so much in advance!