So now you have your proof and you need to decide what to do next... should you confront your spouse with the evidence, or take a more measured approach?  Before launching into confrontation, make a conscious effort to calm down and step back, take some time to gather your thoughts. If you can present the evidence to your spouse in a calm, controlled way it is likely to be a much more productive process.

Try to decide what you really want to happen next. It may be too early to decide for certain if you want to stay in your relationship or leave it, but you may already know. If so, you have a clear goal for the dialogue with your spouse. Be prepared for the fact that your spouse may not react as you expect. He or she may confess all and apologise, or become angry and aggressive. He or she may deny everything, even in the face of what seems to you to be irrefutable evidence. Remember those statistics we talked about earlier - more than 50% of cheaters will continue denying their affair until presented with concrete evidence, and in some cases they'll deny it even then. Julia notes "I suddenly realised that my husband was never going to admit what had happened, no matter what. In that moment, I realised that it didn't matter, it couldn't. I had my proof and I would have to settle for that."

There is a world of difference between a spouse who made a one-time mistake and a spouse who cheats habitually and has had a series of affairs throughout your relationship. In the latter case, you may begin to feel that you hardly know your spouse at all, as you uncover a whole aspect of their personality that is unfamiliar to you. In contrast, a one-time mistake may seem easier to forgive and offers out more hope for the survival of your relationship. However, this will depend on you and how you feel about your relationship and your partner now that you know the truth.

Sometimes, an affair, or even a drunken one-night stand, reveals unpalatable truths about your partner or your relationship, or makes it impossible to ignore other problems. Gwen discovered that her husband had a one-night stand after a drunken night out with mates. She takes up the story "...Blake and his mates went round a few pubs and ended up in a club. He says he was very drunk and that's why he ended up having sex with some woman in the ladies' room of all places. I discovered what had happened only because one of my friends was in the club that night too. When I confronted him he immediately admitted it and was tearful and apologetic. The whole episode made me feel sick, I just knew I could never look at him the same way again. I guess I realised that he had never been the person I thought he was..."

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