Should I challenge my husband about his private emails?

My husband and I have been married for 6 years and together for 10. We moved to Canada one year ago from the UK with our little girl. The reason for the move was my husband’s job but I was very happy with it. I thought everything was great between us.

His job involves a lot of travel, and up until a couple of months ago he has been in Rio de Janiero every couple of months for the last year for between 2 and 3 weeks each visit . He has not had to go for the last couple of months and the next trip is not imminent although he will probably have to go again in the next few months.

For the last couple of months there had been a number of little inconsistencies in things he said about the people he knew in Rio I also noticed that he was getting lots of emails from one particular person, all in Portuguese. I jokingly asked him if he was having an affair but did not believe he would as he has always been very angry about anyone he knows of cheating. He denied it and seemed quite hurt that I had asked

However my niggling doubts would not go away and so I read his emails, translating the ones in Portuguese. He had deleted them all but I was able to retrieve them. He cannot stand people prying and would be very angry that I had read them at all, let alone gone to such lengths to find out what was in them.

I discovered that he was having a relationship of sorts with this woman. There had been nothing physical between them as yet and the tone of the emails is flirty rather than overtly sexual. However he has told her that he is separated and that he wants the relationship to develop next time he is in Rio. He has also asked if he can call her his girlfriend. I was devastated when I read all this.

She refused his request to call her his girlfiend, saying that they had not even kissed yet and there was a lot for them to work out. He responded by saying he couldnt wait to kiss her all over. To be honest, I suspect she is stringing him along herself as she gets most suggestive just before telling him how much she is struggling for money. He has sent some money once though not a very large amount. He asked her to send him some photo’s and she did but they are all photo’s of her with friends and family. These show that she is young (early 20’s) and pretty whilst he is 43, relatively well off and very overweight. I know that those differences in themselves don’t preclude genuine feelings but them combined with her way of asking for money and the fact she doesn’t want any of their mutual friends to know about it does make me think she may just be taking advantage and his ego prevents him from seeing this. I don’t really care about her feelings except that, if I am correct, it is maybe less likely that anything would happen between them?

Even though nothing has happened yet and I’m not so sure it would even if he does see her again I feel deeply betrayed by what he is doing. Is this fair? However, I cannot challenge him or tell him how upset I am without confessing that I have read his emails. If I am worrying over nothing and it is just a harmless flirtation I don’t want to get into a big argument about this as he says he believes trust is everything and will be hurt that I don’t trust him. What should I do?