My husband's dirty secret turned out to be much dirtier than I could ever imagine...

Obviously using a throwaway account because... yeah.

So over the past few months I've noticed my husband sneaking out of the house at night, sometimes for hours at a time. I'm one of those people that fall asleep as soon as their head hits the pillow, so he obviously thinks I'm asleep, but one night I heard the baby crying and noticed he wasn't there. At first I thought he was sneaking out to see another woman, but it turns out it was worse than that, in my opinion anyway.

We had our first child in February this year, and he's been a really hands-on father. Always is there to take care of the baby despite having a full time job when I need a break and all that.

I don't know how else to really say what he's doing without it sounding completely insane (because it kind of is) but it turns out, when my husband goes out at night, all he does is go into the yard where the trash cans are, rummages around, and fishes out a dirty diaper from our child, opens it, and just stands there smelling it. It seems to only be the ones that our son has gone Number 2 in, because I've seen him toss back ones that presumably only have been peed in and look for a dirtier one. And then he just stands there, taking this deep contented breaths in of our child's excrement. For ages. The sad thing is, he looks so damn happy when he's doing it too. I've watched him from the window for weeks now, just standing out there, sniffing with this huge grin on his face, and then rummaging around for another.

The real icing on the cake was the other night when he came back to bed, once again thinking I was asleep. He must have got a bit too close to the diaper when he was sniffing our son's business, because when he got into bed with me I could smell something and opened my eyes a bit when I finally heard him snoring and it turns out he had a bit of poop on his nose. I felt so disgusted.

So I'm at a loss as to what I should do now. I love my husband but this freaks the hell out of me. Has this happened to anyone else before? Is it a fetish or something? I'm too scared to confront him but I know it needs to be done, and any advice would be great because, I mean, shit.

TL;DR - My husband sneaks outside at night to rummage around in the trash for our son's soiled diapers and then sits out there smelling them for hours. Don't know what the %*#& to do. Help?

EDIT 1: I'm still awake right now feeding the baby and waiting to see if he'll make a move later on. Thinking about confronting him, but not sure if I will or not yet. Will update.

EDIT 2: Wow, I can't believe how many people have replied to this post - first of all thank you for all the people who wrote in with such thoughtful advice, I can't reply to everyone but I've read every comment on here so thank you.

I still haven't confronted my husband about what he's doing, and the other night after my update, after waiting an hour or two, sure enough he snuck out again for his nightly diaper sniff. I was planning on confronting him but he ended up coming inside after only smelling one or two, and by the time he came back into bed I was too nervous and flustered to say anything, so just pretended to be asleep. I've decided though that either tonight or whenever he goes outside next (he doesn't every night, but most nights) to take a photo of him in the act and be waiting for him with the evidence when he returns inside. I've never been good with words and I'm just too nervous to sit down with him and bring it up, and someone suggested I photograph/video him so he has no choice to explain since I obviously have evidence and leave him no room to pass it off as me maybe seeing him doing something else. Hopefully I can get a clear enough picture that it will be enough for him to realise there's no way out but confront the issue. I'm nervous about how he will react, but I know he loves me and our family and hopefully there is some way we can work through whatever this is together as a family.

Thanks again for all the supportive comments and advice. There has been overwhelming support and only a few weird comments, and I really appreciate people reserving judgement of my family and I. I will update again once I've confronted him, and hopefully I'll be able to wrap this up nicely and it will be happy endings all round :)

EDIT 3: UPDATE.