Just when you thought everything in your relationship was going swimmingly, you discover your significant other has cheated on you. Suddenly you’ve become the front-page gossip of your own personal tabloid, and like Rob and Kristen, and even though all of your friends seem to know what’s best you just don’t know what to do. Is taking back a cheater weak? Is it true that if they’ve cheated once, they will cheat again? Before you assess what you know already as compared to what you’ve heard, you need to look at how you found out your partner cheated. If your partner confessed to you, the chances of survival are much better.

Odds are that if the cheater comes forth without being prompted that their confession was truly remorseful and that there are most-likely fixable relationship problems that need to be addressed. Your likelihood of success is significantly less if you catch your partner in the act, through email or text, or if you find out through a friend. If the cheater won’t come clean unless they are caught, it means that they aren’t afraid to hide things from you, and if they hide things now, what’s stopping them from hiding something even more drastic further down the road? Following this, you’ll need to address the circumstances of the cheating. Did it happen while you and your partner spent three months apart for the summer? Do you both have hectic schedules and hardly get to see one another? Do you actively listen when you speak to each other? I’m telling you straight up that the majority of all cheating comes from a lack of communication. If someone feels under appreciated or distant, they are more likely to cheat if not tended to early enough. Another crucial indicator is how intense the cheating was. For example, was it a one time drunken fling or was there an elaborate affair? The latter is obviously much more difficult to work through, because a full-fledged affair means it was a sober and conscious choice to betray the partner. While there are stories of married couples that make it through an affair, their stories are few and far between. If the cheating only happened once, there’s a greater chance that it was a stupid mistake caused by stress capitalizing on the heat of the moment. Now let’s get one thing straight: recovering from cheating is never going to be easy. Regardless of whether or not it only happened one time and they confessed, your trust and faith in the person will be shaken to its core, and trust is a difficult bridge to build once destroyed. However, here is something else you need to realize: cheating happens.

According to statistics, over 50% of all men and women in America have admitted to cheating on their significant other, and that’s just the people who admit to it. Because we are flawed by nature, you need to go into your relationships understanding that shit happens; what can be difficult is determining whether the shit is worth it. So how do you know if it’s worth it to rebuild? First look at all the signs: did your partner tell you, how did it happen, and why did it happen? After that look inwards; what do you want and what is going to make you happy? Maybe you try to work past it and just can’t, but the most important key to your success is you and your partner working through it together.