I recommend www.chumplady.com for anyone affected by infidelty. It's motto is Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life.

I did it. I busted my husband when I was pregnant with our third daughter. I immediately went to the lawyer's office. That baby I was pregnant with is 7. I have built a very nice life for myself. My kids are just fine btw. Just fine. They are well adjusted happy girls who make good grades and have good friends. They have a mother who is not going to be cheated on and taken advantage of. They have a great relationship with their father. We do 50/50. I model to them strength and character and integrity!

Seriously go to that website I recommend and spend all day reading!

Your son is young enough that he won't know any different. Don't treat him like a victim. Keep your expectations high and he will rise to meet them.

I'm sorry you are going through this and that the guy is such a creep.

However, a child will do much better being with one HAPPY parent and seeing the other than with two parents, one miserable and one checked out!

You're not a failure you boyfriend is. He's shown you not once, not twice but three times the kind of person he is. I would rather live alone for the rest of my life as a single mother, than live with a cheater. And what is that teaching your son? Your son is 2, he'll adjust! Is your boyfriend a good father? I can see where you would be hesitant to leave if your BF is NOT a good father, then the thought of sending your son for visitation could be scary.

But as Dr. Phil always says.. kids would rather come FROM a broken home than have to live IN a broken home.

My Ex cheated on me quite a few times. It turned me into someone I did not recognize. I was always stressed and worried and didn't trust him. It did not create a good family life.

Our BS was getting ready to turn 5 when I finally left. I honestly wish I would have left when he was younger because it did make things harder on my BS.

I left because I knew once a cheater, always a cheater. I basically was showing my Ex how to treat me.

I left because I did not want BS to live in a household of stress, distrust, lies and cheating.

I left because I deserved better. I was 28 and I said to myself I don't want to be 30 then 40 then 50 and this is still my life and still my story.

I left because I did not want to be a victim.

I left because I loved myself more then him.

The b.s. I went through with Ex took away time from my BS. Instead of enjoying him I was dealing with the cheating. Losing sleep, being stressed out, then sleeping during the day, looking for evidence, checking his phone, etc.

It wasn't easy. There was a good 2 years where it was just stressful and things were rough.

But I met DH. He showed me how a real man treats his woman. I never worry about him cheating on me. I 100% trust him and honestly for me there is no better feeling then knowing that my DH loves me and would never hurt me and has no interest in anyone else.

Don't ever stay just because of the kids. He will keep doing it to you.

You'd serve your son better by leaving. Unless you want him to grow up thinking it's perfectly OK to cheat and sneak so that he can do it to his own wife someday.

Doing what is right isn't easy. Knowing what is right is a little easier. Trust your judgement, and always make sure your circumstances set you up to have a happy life. If that is your environment, you will find it easy to be the great mom you know you are (but not all the time, it's hard work and sometimes they are exTREMEly challenging!)

My bs10 was 2 1/2 when I left his dad. There was no evidence of cheating (but looking back he might have been) but he emotionally and verbally abused me. I stayed for as long as I did because I thought the same as you. I am a COD and didnt want my son to have the same life. I realized though it was hurting him more to see his dad do that to me and us constantly fighting.

A couple months after I left his dad BS told me that I looked a lot happier than I used to be (yes my almost 3yo told me that). That moment is when I knew I did the right thing by leaving.

Okay, so today I'm going to give a slightly different perspective and this is something I haven't told many people. Sorry, I hope nobody burns me at the stake for taking the route that I did. I actually looked at my post for about half an hour debating if I even should risk posting it.

It depends on what the level of cheating was to me (physical and graphic sexting is a no go.)

I found out DH had been texting a woman from work for about a month because I looked through his phone--he had been acting weird and wouldn't even let me borrow his phone to google map a place we had to go, and did it himself despite the fact that he was driving. I wasn't allowed to look at his photos on his phone for some of our daughter's baby pictures, take it with him to the bathroom, shower, etc. So I looked. I always said I'd rather people think I was a controlling bitch than to be the last person to find out.

Found a woman was texting him photos of herself (not fully naked, like sometimes fully dressed or with her top off but bra on.) He had been working on a project at his workplace that coworkers were giving him a really hard time on, trying to shut it off from getting it to the higher ups, and she was the only one who thought he was a straight up genius and hung the stars and the moon (she also recently broke up with her boyfriend... who is married with 3 kids--DH and this woman were kind of friends and when she confided in him that she has low self esteem and how her ex didn't leave his wife for her, DH was all, "You did the right thing, etc." and became her knight in shining armor. Pretty soon she started sending pictures of herself before she left her house to go to functions asking him about opinions of her outfit and then it continued to escalate. No sexting, thankfully. She is now back to being the mistress of her ex.)

We had been going through a rough patch and this was just the last straw for me. I had been asking him to consider a separation for MONTHS and he swore up and down he didn't want to and loved me and our life together and our daughter and whatever but I was MISERABLE (mainly because he was emotionally unavailable because of this project and then the coworker who was stroking his ego in a way that I have never done), and he became more and more emotionally distant and erratic--might also have had something to do with the miscarriage we had and neither of us processed it really well. I had been begging him to just consider maybe we're not compatible and he wasn't willing to let me go but did this shit?

So I simply said I was divorcing him. Didn't even want the option of a separation. I found out I was pregnant a week later, and looked for an abortion clinic (which was damn annoying too because of all the hoops I had to jump through to even find one that would accept my insurance and made an appointment. It sucked because we had given up trying for a second one already due to secondary infertility issues from the c-section I had with my first and the following miscarriage.) In the end I chose not to go through with it because I told my mom who said she and my dad would support myself and my two kids for whatever temporary time I needed, and because I knew I was not going to bother dating/getting married again (try it once, if it leaves a bad taste, don't do it again is my motto) and wanted my daughter to have this sibling and this child that I had wanted too. DH also begged me not to, even though we were divorcing he would also rather I kept it and he would pay for it more than willingly. My mom did tell me (she went through somehing similar with my dad) to give it two months and if I still felt the way I do now, to go through with it.

It was the wake-up call that he needed, I guess. He immediately made an appointment with his therapist, and begged me to at least go with him to one marriage counseling session. Immediately asked me what he needed to do to even start gaining my trust back and that included cutting off contact with that coworker (they are in completely separate departments so it's not that hard, although she did go through a period of stalking him/harassing him until he threatened to go to HR.)

Somehow one counseling session turned to two, turned to three, turned to.... 8 months and counting. He also goes to his therapist twice a month.

And it got better. Better than better. He's kept all his promises, and I have access to all of his accounts/passwords/electronics, etc. any time I want or need without him batting an eyelash. He checks himself whenever I say he's starting to be a bit manic, something he never did before (he would get pissed that I wasn't supporting him) and will settle down. He's a better husband to me than he has ever been in our entire marriage, which is pretty shocking, and he's managed to keep it up for more than two weeks (I always said that was his limit.)

So, what I am saying is, is he willing to do everything it takes and follow through with it to earn your trust back? It's possible to do so. I will be honest, I never thought it was before this, and always vowed if someone did something like this to me, that would be the end. Of course, it wasn't physical or graphic (I had access to the entire conversation he had with her via text and he gave it up willingly) so I can't say I would have given him an inkling of a chance if it was.

You go through all the emotions in this, and the road is really hard. I won't bore you with the details but it involves a lot of tears and working through insecurities you never thought you'd have, but as long as he is willing to take all the responsibility and not get upset with you about how he made you feel, there's hope.

So far, I think I made the right choice. I can't say it will be the right choice for you, especially with a three time offender and I know some ladies will disagree with me. Only you can make that call.

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As a side note I know it sounds horrible but I enjoy the shift to having the majority of the power dynamic in our relationship now because of this one mistake. He never goes anywhere without checking with me first, comes home at the times he says he will (he used to sometimes go grab a drink with his friends and would come home like half an hour later without even checking in while dinner sits cold on the table), does much more of the chores of his own volition, has stopped drinking completely (his therapist suggested it because he can be a bit snippy when he drinks), does a lot of self reflection and owns up to the things he thinks he's doing wrong by himself without me even to have to tell him it upsets me.