I got married wanting a big, traditional, old fashioned family. 5 years ago after (1 month after having my second child) I caught my husband on dating and affair websites trying to meet woman for casual sex. I was heartbroken but we worked through it and he said he never met anyone he was just on there to boost his self confidence so he said and never slept with any women. I didn't know if I really believed him but we worked through it and I gave him the benefit of the doubt, rationalized that he was telling the truth less so because I believed him and more so because I had this ideal in my head of having the perfect family and I was terrified of having it fall apart.

In all the years and children that followed I never caught him on those sites again. And I snooped a lot. Of course, in this day and age it is really easy to go behind spouses backs and he could have been doing it all the time just covered his tracks better.

After having baby #4 I found a phone convo of his where he told a male friend of his "There's nothing wrong with going out and getting laid. Women stay faithful but men on the other hand have needs to fulfill." I knew from then on that he was not the person I thought he was. I thought I married a traditional man who wanted the same ideal of a big happy family that I did. But I was still too scared to leave and he told me about how he never actually cheated on me, I kind of half believed and half didn't believe. I didn't want to admit it to myself. Because I so badly wanted it to work, and I thought it would be extreme to leave, especially when I had never found proof of physical cheating.

Then today I found a secret email address of his with one message from a year ago where he messaged a woman from craigslist looking for a good time. From craigslist of all places! Of all the places to find strange women that could give diseases to bring home to me.

It's the final straw and I feel like I know who he really is now. He isn't the man he pretended to be when I married him. I am terrified beyond belief, I am pregnant with baby #5 now, I don't know what to do. I can't stand the thought of breaking up our family and giving up on the dreams I have. Is it even salvegable? I can't stand living a fake life with an unfaithful man that is living a double life. I don't know if it is worse to break up the family and become a single mom or stay in a fake traditional family where the man is cheating behind my back and the mother is miserable, depressed and distrustful all the time.

I'm too dependent on him, I've been a housewife my whole life, I thought I could live this old fashioned happy family life but I can't do it with somebody I can't trust. I've been miserable and depressed for the past 5 years pretending he isn't cheating but knowing in my heart that I can't trust him. I have to hang my head in shame and go back to live with my family, have this baby alone and be a single mom of 5. He told me that he shares that email address with others and he didn't send the message. But I don't believe him.

I don't know how I will make it on a plane to go back to my country and go stay with my family with 4 little kids (soon 5) or if I even want to. I don't even know what to do. I have wasted my entire life on him, didn't really develop friendships, hardly spent any time at all outside the house. I don't know how I can tell my sweet little children that our family is breaking apart. And I suppose I will have to leave a bunch of their treasured possessions behind when we get on the plane and that breaks my heart too because it will make them sad. I can't ever trust any man ever again and I have no interest in dating or having sex again, ever. It has all been tarnished for me and I have no idea how I will pick up the pieces of my broken life and start again. I do have a side income that is enough to get me by if I can make it over to live with my family until I can get back on my feet, learn to drive, start a career but I will have to be dependent on my family for a while until I can do that which fills me with so much shame. Why would he ruin what we have just for sex. To me sex has no meaning at all outside of bonding with someone you love and reproducing to make a family. I don't understand how people can use other people just to feel physical pleasure.

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I really don't know what to do. Posting this for insight from other traditional women. Is it even salvegable and how? I feel like I've been used by him for my entire life, that he never loved me, and that he isn't the person he pretends to be. I don't have any idea what to do, if I should leave or not. How can I stay and save the family? Or on the other side how can I leave and break the family apart, face him possibly getting angry and who knows what he will do if I try to leave? And then if I successfully leave how will I raise 5 little children alone? I'm so devastated and lost and feel so stupid, dependent, and used.