Girlfriend (33F) emotionally cheated on me (28M). What should I do?

Hello,

I never expected to post anything in this thread ever. Anyways, I and my girlfriend are together for the last 5 years. We were really happy, it was a complete family for me. We bought our first home 2 years ago and have 2 beautiful dogs. I also started engineering last year and almost done with my first year in May. My girlfriend always complained about me I'm not giving her lack of attention for the past few weeks. And, I do agree I was studying so hard couldn't prioritse giving her time. She kept getting distant but , nothing was red flag. On Tuesday, she said it's not working out and she doesnt know what to do with us. I asked her if she like some other guy, she said NO and said that she wanted to fix our relationship. I told her we will be fine, but needs to spend time together again and rebuild the connection. The sex wasn't non existent, it was still twice a week. But my gut kept saying there is more to it.

So, yesterday I went over my girlfriend's phone and found some chats with her best friend H (33F). I learned that she developed feeling for her coworker and was having an emotional affair for a week or two. The guy knew she had a boyfriend, but probably read that she is very receptive to his attention. He told her he wanted to kiss, that made my girlfriend feel good. They were also hugging each other regularly and she liked it.

After the conversion in Tuesday, she blocked the guy and deleted all the texts and chats. So I'm never gonna know what was actually in there. After reading all that, my legs couldn't hold weight and I fell on the floor. She was very guilty and couldn't stop crying. She told me everything that happened, and assured nothing happend physically. Do I trust her- maybe. She even said in those texts that she is worried about the other guy's safety. She told her friend that I gonna go berserk because I'm a trained boxer. I thought too, but as it was happening I realized how weak and pathetic I am.

I don't know what to do anymore. How can she throw us after everything we have been through? For what? One week of attention and validation. I was just too busy with school and house maintenance. I'm always doing something in our house- fixing, shoveling, cleaning backyard etc. I was never offered help in that.

Now if I leave her, I loose everything. I loose our house, my dogs probably and schooling. Because she was making way more than me. I was only paying the the mortgage. She was covering the rest. If I leave, I have to work full-time and my school program is only full-time. How am I gonna take care of dogs?

If I don't dump her, then I'm weak and failure for the rest of my life. All my life I tried to do right thing and lived by my codes. I don't deserve this.

The biggest heartbreak is I regrarded her a the ultimate top of the barrel woman. She was my pride, my everything. I used to think the whole world could be wrong, but she couldn't possibly be. I don't know what to do anymore.