One of the most common mindfucks the cheated upon may experience after discovery of an affair, is the expectation that they will try harder to win back the cheater. This expectation either comes from the cheater directly — “I cheated because you’re a lousy (partner, housekeeper, lay)” — and how are you going to up your game to keep me? Or it comes from the codependency of the chump — “What did I do to make him cheat? And how can I be a better partner to make him stay?” Often both dynamics are at play, and feed into each other. The cheater, of course, is quite happy to pin this shit on you.

When terrible things happen, it’s very natural to want to feel a sense of control. To think, oh if I’d only done X, Y would not have resulted. If you are at fault, the reasoning goes, well, then you could FIX this. (Codependents love to fix things.) So you will take this crappy situation, and think you can control the outcome by just trying harder.

This is a bad idea for several reasons. First, you aren’t at fault for another’s cheating. That’s on them. As they say in therapy about people behaving self destructively – the Three C Rule – “you didn’t CAUSE it, you cannot CURE it, and you cannot CONTROL it.”

Second, if you see the affair as a competition that you must try harder to “win,” the marriage becomes a bidding war between the chump and the affair partner. The best response is to fold, because the game is rigged. There is no winning bid. The cheater just wants the competition to go on indefinitely. (See the Unified Theory of Cake.) They want to sit impassively while you do the humiliating dance of “pick me!” This makes them feel powerful, central, special.

Cheating comes from a sense of entitlement. All you do when you compete for your marriage is solidify that entitlement – that it is YOUR job to ensure the happiness of the cheater, and hey, you missed a spot. Healthy relationships are based upon reciprocity. Infidelity is a toxically lopsided situation. Cheaters want the scales tipped in their favor (more attention, more ego stroking, more sex, more materialism) at your expense. They just don’t want to try that hard, and they’re gonna sulk if you make them.

What does the humiliating dance of “pick me!” look like?