lost-hil

So I've got a situation I'd like an opinion on...

First of all I'll start with the situation I'm in in life. I'm a student, now in a doctoral program. I know some of you are going to say the problem with my marriage is that I spend too little time with him and too much with my studies, but I don't I promise. We recently moved to this very remote, back-country, tiny town, little hole in the wall, high up in the mountains place in rural VA for me to attend this school. We left a city, a small city, but a big city was just 20 minutes away. All of his family and my family are back home (32 hours away). Most of his family lived in or at least worked in the city we lived in. So to say the very least, this is a change of pace for us...tiny, with no family support. We've been here one year now.

We've had our ups and downs before. But this is something else, something new, and I just can't put my finger on it...

One night, about 3 months ago, I got up in the middle of the night (1:30am)...I never do this. I needed a drink of water. He's not in bed, he's not in the living room watching a movie like would be normal for him to do if he doesn't have to go to work the next day...I figure he's outside having a cigarette. I head to get my glass of water. I hear him talking on the phone. Ok, fine, I'm not typically jealous or anything, just thought well it's only 11:30 back home so he's probably talking to someone there. I don't think anything of it. He comes back in from outside 30 minutes later, ending his call in the house so I know he was on the phone the entire time, and for who knows how long before I got my glass of water. I simply ask him who he was talking to, thinking he was gonna say his mom or something. He denies being on the phone at all. Saying I must been hearing things. I say, no, I know you were on the phone, he says he must have been talking to the cats, I say no, saying I fed all three cats while I got my water and so I know where he was vs where the cats were and that's not possible. So, it basically happens again two days later. Said he was on the phone with a guy friend, I checked, he wasn't, I confront him...he says he may be in love with somebody else, he hasn't cheated, but they're fast on their way there, and he's thought about it a million times.

I'm devastated. I'm blindsided, no clue anything was wrong...yeah we've been drifting apart a little bit, but not this! He says he's done, I'm done, we need to sign some papers and move on. He's says he's not going home, he's gonna stick it out here with her...even though my school is the reason we're here, he hates it here to my knowledge, and the plan after graduation was to go back home anyways.

I stay at other people's houses and let him have the house for 3 weeks. In these 3 weeks we talk a little...it comes out that he's not set in stone about her, he started talking to her as a counselor about us, I guess she's similar to me and he wanted some perspective, he said he didn't cheat (he said it with "that" face, so I believe him). He tells me that he doesn't think we can fix things. He says I used to be a nice person, respectful, and now I'm rude and I've made him unhappy, taken his free will, and his spirit has been lost in this marriage. All of which, as of today, he denies saying. We get separate phone bills now and he texts like it's going out of style (1800 this month by himself! somewhat reminds me of the amount I used to get before we moved in together).

The next 6 weeks, I'm actually out of the state doing school rotations. I have no choice, I have to go do this...I didn't want to, not leave him alone after the stuff that just went down...but I choose trust over anger in an attempt to show love. I find some emails while there that tell me he's signed up for some dating sites way back in January and March, long before I was outta the house. I confront him, he says he was looking for someone to talk to, maybe some fun pics, but would never have done anything. Yet his profiles on those things ask for one time hook ups and mention he'd be up for threesomes and how well endowed he is. We talk, once, in those 6 weeks. Lots of texts, FB messages, but I heard his voice once.

I come home, I'm staying at home, in the spare bedroom/office. I'm trying this book...maybe you've heard of it, the Love Dare. I think things are getting better. The first week, all is well. I got a few hugs, I touched his shoulders a couple of times, we're cooking together again, hanging out together, we share some things, he asks me with his cute "I'm gonna seduce you now" smile on his face to make him cookies (it's the biggest thing in awhile), things are looking good. Two days later, he tells me things are starting to get back to normal and that's uncomfortable for him, says I should stop cooking dinner for him, says I should stop calling him baby and honey and stuff, and basically tells me to back off.

It goes through the same cycle every few days...build up to happy, mood change, we're watching our backs with weird silence. He moves the PC out of my room into his room, moves one of my dressers into my room in it's place. I go to pay bills today, his phone included, I see he's got 1800 texts messages on there. I'm figuring on the amount he used to text his family that they take up MAYBE 400 of those, I take probably about 50...who the heck are the others? I don't know who, cuz I don't know any of his friends. It could be "the guys", but I don't know any of his guys. I'm not privy to that information. I know two people at his work, he wouldn't be texting them. It could be innocent, it could not be too.

I simply don't know know weather I should confront him on this, let it slide, just give up and start looking for a place to live...I don't know. My heart tells me to stick around, try the book, try to save it. My head tells me it's over, he cheated, he's cheating. We've always said to each other in the past that if you cheat, you're gone. But now that I'm here, at this crossroad, I don't know anymore. I think he cheated, and I think he knows how I feel about that, and he's too scared to tell me, knowing it'll be over...but I kinda wanna tell him that I'd rather just know for sure, like come clean buddy, maybe something can be worked out.

I need your help...what would you do?