6 Choices You Have After You Found Out Your Man Cheated On You

A man who wants to cheat will cheat. 

Let's include women in that, too.

As the victim of cheating, you couldn't have prevented it. Despite all the reasons going through your head right now, the blissful hindsight and all the shoulda-woulda-coulda, you couldn't have stopped this from happening.

They did it. Your man did the dirty. And now you know it and can do something about it.

This is the only time in the cheating process that you now have a choice. As the victim of cheating, what happens next is up to you. It's your reaction, your decisions and your hurt to work through.

Yeah, I know that's all well and good. But what actually happens next? Let's be practical here. These are the realistic actions you can take when your man has cheated on you. And the one to avoid if you want to get it "right".

Cry, cry, cry

Go for it. You're hurt, they're done something epically shit towards you and disrespected you and your relationship. 

Cry, because it hurts and that's the instinct at that moment.

I'm not going to tell you to play some power game here and tell you to moderate your crying. 'When and where and who's around' type of thing. 

When my ex cheated on me and I found out and balled my eyes out, he told me to stop making him feel bad. He thought they were crocodile tears. Asshole.

They were genuine, though. 

I simply didn't hide them away and cry into my pillow like the romance movies might tell you to do. No one is winning in the situation, so the power tug of war is useless.

Yell, yell, yell

And the anger is equally justified too. You can yell, scream, and tell your partner off. 

Sometimes a little healthy yelling can make you feel better, or convey the hurt better than tears. 

Or any words you can say.

I'm not talking about being abusive, by the way. I'm not suggesting you exercise irrational and offensive anger towards your partner. 

Yet, being nice to them and staying rationally calm isn't fair to you if you're rightly angered. You don't have to spare their feelings.

If you're worried about how others will interpret your anger, or you don't want to get angry in front of your partner, go to a boxing gym. And use a literal punching bag.

Get out right now

Kick the deadbeat cheater out of your life. 

If you share a home or are staying together, tell him you need space and he needs to get out. If that's what you need, the cheater needs to respect this. They have to respect this. 

He messed up, not you.

You're not being a bitch by kicking them out of the home, by the way. It's one of those situations where they've destroyed the relationship, they shouldn't expect it to be smooth sailing for them. 

They should almost expect this to happen.

If you want to be the one that leaves, go for it. The worst thing is staying when you know seeing their face will evoke unnecessary anger, tears and arguments between you.

Trust? Yeah, let's get it back

Not all cheating is fatal. I know I don't have "breaking up" on this list. I'm sure that's a given.

But this situation isn't black and white, as you probably know. You don't have to throw it all in because your partner made one mistake. 

It's far more complicated than that, with many factors specific to you and your relationship. I won't go into them (let me know if you want me to), but there are many.

What is universal in this situation is that the cheater broke the relationship's trust. What you can do from here is work on the trust and try to find a way to get through this feeling.

It won't happen overnight, though you probably know that. But if you're committed to repairing the trust, no one can blame that reaction.

Not that it's anyone else's decision, by the way.

Avoid asking for details

No one is saying you have to know everything about what your partner did. Or did it with. This is a matter of desire; you either want to know or not.

Knowing can help you get through it and resolve what happened in your head. Not knowing can do the same too.

There is merit in finding out, I will say. If you're trying to rebuild trust or want to avoid a repeat situation with the next person, knowing what happened helps you learn.

Cheating is a very selfish act; it doesn't occur out of thin air. 

And if you're attracting cheaters, you might learn the signs to avoid the next one.

Go on social media

There is a temptation in this situation to go to social media and tell the world about what happened to you. Out the cheater. Let them feel the humiliation and embarrassment they inflicted on you.

Some will see this as airing their dirty laundry, which never ends well. Others will move on better with an evening of the score and the sympathy of complete strangers.

This is your call. 

In this situation, I would focus on what you're not going to regret in the long term. Short-term gain can always have long-term pain.

Don't make a permanent decision on a temporary emotion

And with that final thought, I land here. Making permanent decisions on temporary emotions.

That first instinct you have that you follow through with might not always be the decision you want to live with. More often than not, that instinct you swear by is the temporary emotion caused by this situation.

Crying is temporary. Break-ups are permanent.

Reworking the trust is temporary. Moving out of your shared home the day it happens is permanent.

What happened to you, the cheater's pain, won't last forever. But whatever you do next will. 

Though no one begrudges you for taking action using those temporary emotions, it doesn't take much effort to let the pain and heartache subside before making a decision.

The cheater in this scenario didn't exercise much thought for you. They didn't think about their permanent decision. Perhaps don't do the same thing you hate about what they did. 

You're better than that, after all.

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