After the revelation that Tristan Thompson had cheated on Khloe Kardashian broke the internet last week, a lot has been said about cheating partners and untrue relationships. We helpfully sent out a guide to figure out the red flags – the warning signs to see if a partner is cheating on you. As unpleasant and absolutely horrifying as the whole thing is, it is also essential to know exactly where you stand in a relationship. But what if the worst happens? After that gut-wrenching feeling of finding out that you are being cheated on, the oncoming nausea and the spiralling down into misery, what next? You want to kill the guy out of pure instinct but that’s not going to get you anywhere (except jail).

So here are some points to keep in mind.

Talk to them when you are ready

The first thing to do is not to ignore what is happening, it won’t disappear if you refuse to look at it. You need to process your feelings, see how you feel about it, and after deciding how to confront the situation, talk to your partner. You as a betrayed party in a solid relationship have the right to ask all the questions you need answers to, but it is essential to go about this in a constructive way. Unless of course you have decided you don’t want to go ahead with it. Then feel free to wreck his house with a baseball bat. Kidding. Maybe.

Don’t blame yourself

A lot of people tend to feel like it is their fault that they were cheated on. False. The onus of cheating is not on you, never was. You are who you are, and your partner cheating is not a commentary on you but them. In a relationship, if your partner felt like their need wasn’t being met, they should have spoken to you about it. What they did was go behind your back and that isn’t healthy, unnecessary as it to say.

Decide where you want to head from here

You have to make sure you don’t rush the healing process. Once you are done talking to your partner about what happened and getting all the information you need about the whys, and the wheres, and all, you need to decide where to head from here and how. Do you think you can trust them again? Do you think you will ever see them the same way? Do you think it was a mistake? Or is it an unforgivable instance? All these are questions you need to ask yourself. That is how you move ahead in life.