The information in that first paragraph is really great. He will have to be an open book for a LONG time. And defensiveness is not allowed on his part; well, he can FEEL defensive, but he doesn't get to act on it. You have to be able to KNOW what he is doing, that he is doing good things, not doing bad things, at all times.
And it is very positive that he came to you.
My FIL, I've posted this before, got himself into a huge, deep hole. Not in CC debt, but in taxes and just flat out having nothing to his name. And we only found out after he died. Turned out he hadn't filed taxes in 6 years, which resulted in over $50,000 in back taxes, fees, and interest on it all, for MIL when she finally found an accountant to take care of it all. We also found out he had taken 20,000 from her whole life insurance ("whole life" has a value you can cash out), by forging her signature and getting someone to witness "MIL" signing. We have NO idea where that money went.
He was a coward; the more we think on it, we think he willingly died (instead of fighting for his life) instead of telling his (scary) wife about what had been going on.
In comparison to that, your hubby is a very brave man (though I'm sure you are not scary like my MIL) for finally coming clean, even if it was because things were unraveling.
So just as long as he continues to be absolutely open, honest, and clear with you about it all, and never wonders "aren't you over this by now?", I think you guys stand a really great chance to come through this.
OH, also, from what I've noticed with FIL and to a lesser extent when DH is keeping relatively small things from me, many times, things are bad *because* of the secret. It's like it's impossible for them to be entirely normal, which makes the relationship harder and just *weird*. So once the secret is out, the relationship can breathe again, can take a big breath and get better. So you might find that just having this out in the open is going to help your relationship. And then you will have the counseling (he also might want to have individual counseling, perhaps with the same person, but perhaps with someone different, to work out, on his own, WHY he did this) to help things get even better.
