Cyber-Cheating & Emotional Affairs

I found out almost 2 months ago that my husband had been carrying on a emotional, all phone/text affair for 4 1/2 months with some woman that came up to him randomly and pursued him for two weeks at work.  He works in a place that deals with the public all day long, so she for lack of a better term was a customer of the business.  Once she handed out her numbers to him, it began.  I had no idea.  We have been married for 25 years, and together for 27 years.  Nothing changed in our relationship.  I was there present in our relationship on all levels for him every day.  I was attentive and caring and was completely blindsided.  I never had a clue that something was going on until one evening, when I had text him late asking him to text me on his way home so I could have his dinner warm and ready for him when he got home.  The text actually was delivered, which surprised me, as he didn't normally have his cell phone on at work.  I fully expected that it wouldn't be delivered until he was out of work.  I happened to be texting my daughter as well, and i noticed that the text actually was delivered.  I thought it odd, but just dismissed it.  Then I started wondering why it went through and time got later and later.  Now typically I would be asleep when he got home in the evening during the work week, but this was a Friday night, and our older daughter was out with her boyfriend so I was waiting for both of them to come home.  Mind you my husband works hard and I thought was just working late every night until 11:15 or so.  As my imagination started wandering a bit more, I remembered that my husband had opened the cell phone bill the month before (it was odd as he never had before, and I took care of that).  So my imagination continued to wander.  I called his phone and no answer, straight to voicemail.  I left a few voicemails and got more and more angry.  I text and no response.  I finally called his work and was told that he had left quite some time ago and pretty much always left right on time (it was like I was being given a clue by someone that had figured out what was going on).  I finally called and got him and started on a verbal rampage.  He came home expecting that I would have thrown his clothes outside.  He came in very cocky and defensive and I said, ok now that I see you have racked up 1200 minutes in the last month on the cell phone bill (free mobile to mobile prevented a large additional phone charge). I asked who he had been talking to all that time.  He said "people"  I didn't buy that for anything.  After a little while he told me.  He called it a "friendship".  I didn't buy that either. He wouldn't give me the name right away.  Finally did.  Then I asked for her number as he had deleted from the phone.  He wouldn't do that.  Well, wasn't he shocked when I pulled it all up on line, charge by charge, text by text for 4 1/2 months.  Evidence.  He had called her on our anniversary, on my daughters 11th birthday.  Not just once but several times each day.  Hours and hours of calls, and staying away every night for an additional hour before coming home from work.  He even spoke to her on the way to work for 25 minutes, while I would get some lame text saying "love you" and nothing more.  From that night, I was up for about 48 hours straight.  He didn't think I would forgive him and didn't know how to handle any of what was coming next.  It took hours to get through to figure out what he wanted and just to get over the shock that he of all people had betrayed me.  He and I talked all that night and decided to try to make it work.  I took his phone, I also researched every day on those phone bills.  It was torture, but I was in such disbelief I had to see the actual evidence.  I couldn't believe that he had called on days that were to have been outtings as a family or when I was at the hospital with our daughter as she was having an mri.  He worked an overnight schedule one night and had talked to her at midnight, 2:30 and gave her a wake up call at 5:20.  I was devastated. It hurts now.  I love my husband very much, and have no idea what happened to make him think this was ok ever.  He and she discussed it being wrong, discussed having the same cell phone provider, discussed keeping it from me.  He tells me repeatedly that none of the calls were sexual in nature nor were the texts.  It was random conversations about what was going on that day.  just everyday stuff.  Although it still should have been stuff talked about with me.  As the time went on I found through the phone records that the calls were getting more lengthy and frequent.  She was in the midst of a divorce and I truly believe had an agenda that she was working on my actually rather naive husband.  I did text her the day following my finding out, from my husbands phone.  He had asked me not to, but I had to.  I remained respectful and used every ounce of decorum I had and simply asked her to please respect my marriage and family and to please not contact my husband or see my husband in anyway.  Well she came back with a text attacking me and saying that I had no right to tell her anything and that now she knew what kind of person I really was.  My husband swears that he never said anything to her about me in negative way and that he was in love with me and was happily married.  He also said that none of it makes any sense as to why it happened at all.  He hasn't spoken to her since that night I found out.  He is really working on our relationship, which was great before all this.  It is hard.  He wants to forget that he did it and is terribly guilty about and hates that he hurt me.  He has forgotten the conversations he had with her and her number, although had also forgotten that he had her number in his wallet which I came across yesterday while putting a new picture of our daughter in his wallet.  I confronted him and he did tell me that he had just forgotten that he had it in his wallet.  He destroyed it.  We had a related argument last night but he has since come to truly realize that finally that he had cheated and he begged my forgiveness and told me that I am the love of his life and that she meant nothing to him and he simply didn't know how to get out of it.  she did almost all the talking during this and he never enjoyed himself during it. 

None of this has been easy, but I we have too much history and future potential to not give it all we have to try to make it through this.  My heart still hurts some, but with time and work I think we will be truly happy again.