Echo86,
Welcome to a your new group of friends. You will probably never find people who understand you more than on SI.
A few things struck me about your post and many others will come along with their own observations and advice.
He's been going to massage parlours for happy endings, 2x intercourse and you figure about 10 visits.
--keep digging. Why do you think it's 10 times, who told you intercourse twice? Again, dig and dig again. There is always more. I found out the hard way and the TT (tickle truth) is a killer.
He spent 5K on one night alone at a strip club
On what? One of the times he had intercourse? The other time was a bargain? 5K buys you a lot of services in a strip club. Your H was enjoying a deluxe nght out.
He blames depression, lack of sex with you, stress (sure we don't have the same husband?).
Lots of depressed and stressed people don't cheat.
Uncharacteristic of him?
Most certainly, otheriwse you would not have married him, correct?
Full transparancy of hs devices. That's great, now that he may be hiding his further activities. Perhaps you should be looking at his location history on his phone, pull all detailed billing of his calls randomly from years past. You may be surprised at what you find. The more bills I request, the more I find. I'm talking years, not months.
And remember, you don't need a cell phone to simply walk into a massage parlor. No calls doens't mean no rende-vous. They also text which with some cell phone companies cannot be traced. There are apps that can be downloaded every day and reased.You can even leave your phone at the office so your location history shows you are at work.
Beware of these tricks.
You joined a gym etc...
Good for you! Keep it up. See friends, join a group. fundraise, whatever it takes to help you feel better about yourself without him around. You've taken some very positive steps already.
Your family would like you to leave him.
You will do what's best for you in due time. There is no rush to make any decisions. Don't give in to pressure from them or your H. You have the right to think this through completely. Part of that is knowing what you are dealing with. Again, push for the truth.
Lastly, nobody ever expects this of their H. We all had what we thought was a decent man who loved and respected us as much as we did them. Never for a second did I think my H would disrepect me in such a way. Never sustpected such a thing and that's why it took me so long to figure it out and only because I came actoss it quite uinnocently.
Otherwise, he would probably still be at it.
That's what hurts the most. They probably would not have stopped if we had not found out.
So now we are left questionong, why did you stop once you found out and feel so remorseful. Why didn't you feel remoseful enough to simply stop?
Because we put an end to your cheating when we found out. Or at least we think we did.....
I hope you don't regard all my comments as negative. I am not as kind as some others on this site. I am a no nonsense, no BS type of person and simply sharing a few arguments with you in case your H tries to woo you back and you end up in rugsweeping/minimizing mode.
I know you care about and love your H. He needs to do the work to figure out why he thought what he was doing was somehow justified.
It would have been so easy to simply say:
Echo86, we need to talk. I'm not happy about (insert problem here), I bet you would have listened.
He chose not to communicate this to you becaue it then gave him permission to run around.
Boo hoo, my wife is so mean. Whaww whaww, she woulnd't have sex with me last might. I work hard, I deserve this.
What she doesn't know won't hurt her.
I bet all those thoughts ran through his mind. He needs to figure out why.
Can't concentrate? You're normal. Think only about this problem? I understand perfectly.
You are well surrounded. Please continue posting so we can offer a some friendly advice. Every time I read a newcomer's story, my heart breaks a little more.
You are in for a ride of self-discovery, You will question a lot of things about yourself but please, know this,
THis is not your fault. This is 100% on him.
The kind folks on SI finally got through to me about that. Took a long time but I get that part of it now.
Good luck
Hugs