Husband Lied About Cheating, Now He's Confessed And It Is A Mess

My husband (40) and I (37F) have been married for 11 years, but have dated for 20. Ever since I met him in high school, he has always pursued me. Because I was a freshman when he was a senior, we didn't date until after I graduated high school. He had a reputation for being a partier/player, and against my better judgment, I fell for him. He has always been very adamant about how much he loves me, and has made that clear to friends, family, etc. We've had a bunch of ups and downs over the years, one being when I wanted to go away to college and he said if I loved him, I wouldn't go. I did end up going away to college and we broke up. But then, a few months later, he was begging to get back together and make it work so I got back with him and we did long distance. I was on birth control but I still ended up getting pregnant at 19. I was devastated when this happened, but he didn't seem to mind it because he always made it clear I was his end goal. We had our son (who is turning 17 in a month), and got married when he was around four.

We moved states about ten years ago and he has been pretty emotionally unavailable our whole relationship. My needs have really never been met and recently, when I've started to express this to him, he accuses me of nagging or says he isn't capable of being the partner that I want or that I want too much. There's a lot more about our relationship, but this is the issue at hand:

I threw him a 40th birthday at the end of last year and a couple days before the party I opened his text message to see a selfie from a woman he used to go to high school with. The whole exchange bugged me and was very flirty. The woman — who is divorced — has always been buddy-buddy with me when we've been in town and acted like we are great friends. So, in light of it being the holidays and not wanting to cause an argument, I shelved it to discuss later on. Well, the day of his party (she lives 3 hours out of town), she drove in that day just to come to my husband's party. She was also the only one who brought him a gift and this heartfelt card. I was annoyed at the party, so I stayed upstairs and avoided the whole situation. At the end of the night, when everyone was leaving, I saw her phone on the table with multiple text notifications from my husband. So, I called it out. I told the woman she might want to check her phone because she had texts from my husband on them — and said it loud enough for her and my husband to hear. I then left the room, expecting my husband to say bye to everyone and come sort things out with me. I expected a fight (which we fight often), but then for it o be resolved. Well, he never came inside and turned off his location that night.

,The next day he swore nothing happened and that he hung out with her mom (she was staying at her parents house since she lives out of town). However, it had to have been like 3 am by the time they left so I highly doubt her 65+ year old mom was up hanging out with them. After pressing him for literally over an hour, he was still admant that they never hooked up and that he was just really drunk and they've been friends so long, he was just talking to her about how his life will change when our son goes to college bla bla bla. I was still upset for him leaving me so I made him stay at his parents for a while and he promised to get counseling and explained how he felt so lost,etc etc. I knew this woman and thought I could trust her so it was just squashed as a drunken dumb night.

Fast forward to now (10 months later), and without getting into details because there are a lot leading up to this, but the whole situation resurfaced and I got him to confess to literally doing everything with her, including sleeping with her. He said he was scared to tell me because I would leave him and also how it would affect our son. He even did as much as got an STD test afterward to make sure he wasn't going to give me anything. I feel so sick and betrayed by both of them. He sure seemed to remember a lot of details about that night for how "drunk" he says he was. Anyway, he says he does not like her and it was just a one night mistake and they've never talked before but I don't know what to believe. I have looked at phone records and know it would have been hard for them to physically cheat since I am with my husband a lot and she does not live near us. We've been talking about it more and he is going to start going to counseling but last night he was basically saying that he doesn't know why he did it and it isn't because he loves or likes her. He said he genuinely wants to be with me and he just sees sex as an act and it meant nothing else. He then went on to say that he doesn't know "what is wrong with him" and that he doesn't think he wants to be in an open relationship but he does think sex and thinking about women as objects has been an issue for him. He said he stopped watching porn since this all happened. (Not sure I believe that.) He said he wants to work it out with me and I feel so confused because we do have a pretty steady sex life and the first 10 years of our marriage he wasn't even that sexual if that makes sense. Also not so fun fact is he is the only person I have ever been intimate with (he had mutiple partners before me, he was also older). Nothing seems to be adding up but I truly don't think he was having a full blown affair with her because I feel like there would be more evidene but maybe I am being naive. I feel so confused on so many levels and don't know what to do. Does anyone have thoughts or advice? I can provide more info if needed, I just really need some help. Thank you.

TL;DR: My husband lied about cheating and would have probably taken it to his grave if new info had not surfaced. He has now confessed and said it was just sex and he may have an issue with sex and wants to be with me and work it out with me.