Fairness and Old Hurts

AARON HASS Ph.D.

IDEALLY, WE ACT FAIRLY EVEN WHEN THERE IS AN ABSENCE OF CON-strains forcing us to (such as a concrete punishment) or the enticing promise of some reward (such as the approval of other). but when we fell deprived, or insecure, or cheated by life, we find it difficult even to discern what is fair. As a result, our tendency is to compensate to those feelings and, in so doing, act unfairly in the moment.

Most of us, as adults, come to relationships with old grievances that get in the way of being rational, acting fairly, and responding to the present person and circumstance.

You ask your spouse to call if he's going to come home late from work so that you don't being to control me. I don't being to imagine him in a fiery care wreck. He reacts angrily, "Don't try to control me. I Don't want to have to report to you!"

You try to make a reasonable case for why you should be able to go out occasionally with your male friends. She tries to sound jocular, but her hurt at your "rejection: is clear: Why would you rather spend time with them me.

You make an unconscionably high demand to settle a lawsuit you brought against your former business partner because you anticipate that he will try to cheat you out of what is rightfully yours.

Having felt abandoned and rejected as a child twenty-five years ago, you become jealous and angry when your friend offers a coveted invitation to a gala dinner to someone else. You vow never to speak to her again.

I go away for the weekend with my family. My patient, who has always felt unloved, leaves me a message on my answering machine: "If you really cared about me, you would be here I need you."

We revokt against unfairness. Several studies have shown that people who have been through a process they regard as fair are more likely to comply with the decision reached by that process than are those who have thought it unfair. Remember when you were a child and felt that your friend was playing unfairly during a game? You abruptly broken off the process, ended your "contract" to play to geather, and stomped off yelling, "I don't play with cheaters!" As adult, we are a little more civil. When we fell that another has cheated, we silently vow never to play with him again.,  

All of these individuals hunger for love and fairness from others. Ironically, and tragically, their hurt cause them to react in such an unfair manner that they guarantee they will not receive what they so desperately need. We don't suffer the unreasonableness of others very well. All of us want to be approached with a clean slate, fairly, and not with the history of disappointments that the other brings.