Devastated by husband's emotional affair

Hello everyone. I am really struggling right now and would greatly appreciate any guidance or outside thoughts. This will end up being a bit long, but I feel I need to give the full picture. My husband and I have been together for 12 years (only married for 5). We have a 4-year-old and a 6-month-old. I love him, though we are complete opposites. The biggest problem in our relationship has been my fear/anxiety of social situations and also our differences in habits. He drinks every day and works at a brewery (used to do bartending and now is head of sales)--it is a HUGE part of his life. I don't drink AT ALL and actually have issues from my childhood that make me really uncomfortable around intoxicated people. It is a constant struggle for us. I can't seem to work on my fear of being out, and what happens is I end up at home all the time with the kids.. I even work from home so my contact with the outside world is very little. About a year or so ago (around the time I was finding out I was pregnant with our second baby) I discovered some items in our car that belonged to another female. It was a Christmas card that someone had given her, which had her name on it, and it appeared as if she had just left it by mistake in the car. I asked about it, he mentioned that this individual was a female at work and they had gone to a party after their bar shift a few evenings prior and that they hung out occasionally. I had no idea, this was the first I'd heard of her, so I felt very strange about it, told him I didn't want him socializing with her outside of work. Kept my cool, didn't accuse him of anything. The first year of our relationship, he had kissed another girl and this always hung around in my head and made me a bit insecure. A few months later, my husband attended a basketball game with friends and ended up getting so intoxicated that he was incoherent. I called him for hours, couldn't reach him, and then eventually he called me telling me he was on his way home and this same particular female, let's call her L, was giving him a ride home. I was horrified... why was he with her, what is going on, he's definitely having an affair with her... my thoughts were out of control. I was really mad about the situation, but he swore nothing has and would ever happen with her, he didn't think of her in that way, etc. Oh, and I just have to add that this woman is drop dead goregous, wonderful right? I got over it, believed him, even emailed the woman thanking her for giving him a ride home and keeping him safe. I told him AGAIN that I didn't want him to have any contact with her outside of work. At this point, it became a constant issue. I would always ask if he'd been with her and we would even make jokes about them being together. I totall believed he didn't see her outside of work and didn't have any interest in her at all. The last month I'd been feeling extremely suspicous. He seemed to be getting home later or not answering his phone for periods of time, or being sketchy about details. Always saying he was hanging out with a male friend of his, and I believed it. Last Saturday for some reason I started snooping through his phone (yes I know this is wrong) but it happenned. I stumbled across a text (which was actually not from her, but from a male friend). It was on Valentines day and the friend had asked him, "whatcha up to." My husband said "oh, just heading to have drinks" the friend said "oh with your wife" and my husband responded "F-No, my wife doesn't go out, I'm meeting L." I lost my breath, completely confused as I"d asked him to go out to dinner numerous times and he kept saying no, it would stress me out and we'd just stay home for Valentines day. I did find one text from her in there, which was a character picture of a monkey to which he sent back a smiley face. I confronted him, he admitted to hanging out with her on Valentines Day. Another male friend ended up showing up as well, but the plans were made with just her. He admitted to hanging out with her and getting drinks with her 2 to 3 times a week after work. He admited that he has a huge crush on her and they text/call each other frequently. OF course I looked at our phone records and was sad to see all of the texts between them. He basically admitted, yes I am having an emotional affair--swears nothing physical has ever happenned. He had a daily habit of deleting the text messages from her on his phone before he came home and lied to me almost every day about what he had done. Meanwhile, I'm at home working 40 hours a week watching babies at the same time and he's out doing THIS?!! I went absolutely crazy, I texted the girl from his phone to see what types of responses I could get and she eventually knew it was me. IT does seem true that it is not physical, and that possibly she really just thinks of him as a friend, but I was mean to her and am embarassed now. She emailed me, explaining that my husband really loves me and there is nothing going on and all they talk about his me and the kids or her boyfriends. I explained to her that I considered that an emotional affair and had no idea they even hung out, and he lied about EVERYTHING, after I repeatedly told him not to have contact with her. She got pretty snooty, acting like I'm blowing this out of proportion, making my husband and her sound like the victims and like he's such a wonderful guy saying they are "both hurt' and just like eacho thers company, but she has a boyfriend (a new one every week actually). She admited that she knows lots of details about our marriage and doesn't undersand why I won't just go out and spend time with my husband and how love means compromising and doing things we don't like and how hurt he is that I dont go "party" with him. I admit, I have issues there and obviously made my husband crave social interaction and attention from other females, but I absolutely hate how one-sided of a story she has from my husband. I am so angry and sad and really just want to divorce him. The other part of me says no, we have children, that is not fair to them not to try., which of course he says he wants to do and doesn't know what had gotten in to him and is "glad" I caught him before other things could happen. He swears he loves me to death and doesn't want anyone else, but how can he expect me to believe that? I go from hysterical tears to complete anger and just don't know where to go from here. He still works with her, and that isn't going to change. I just don't think we can recover and I don't know how to stop being so angry with him. The only thing I know for sure is if we are going to try to make it work he cannot have any contact with this female whatsoever, which is impossible with his working situation so I feel doomed. Do you all think I"ve blown this out of proportion? Honest opinions please? Please give me some advice. I don't know what to do. :(

Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 2629979