Does Your Relationship Feel Unfair?

You’re mad at your mate because you feel something isn’t fair.

You feel like you’re doing more of the chores, the childcare, the emotional work, or pulling more than your weight financially. You’re building up resentment. When you try to talk about this with your partner, it goes terribly. One thing that might be getting in the way of a good conversation is your assumption that fairness should be a goal in your relationship.

When you try for evenness or fairness, you use mental energy to track who’s doing what. Sitting with hundreds of couples, we know that both people in a couple often feel they are pulling more than their own weight. You’ll never get to the truth about who is doing more. You’ll only get into destructive conversations where you both feel unappreciated and unrecognized.

A long time ago, couples therapists used to help couples broker deals. A few still do, but it doesn’t work well. Quid pro quo or “something for something,” doesn’t work in love relationships. It creates a culture of tracking, self-interest and scarcity. When one person says “I have been doing all of these things. It’s not fair”, usually their mate says “but I’ve been doing all of THESE things, and you don’t appreciate it.”

You don’t just have to live with resentment. You need a different goal and a different set of assumptions. Your goal is not fairness, but mutual dependence, appreciation and generosity. Why should your partner help you with the dishes? It’s not because you have done dishes more this week and he has done less. That logic could lead to an infinite amount of accounting of different tasks. Your partner should help you because you’re overwhelmed and you’ll appreciate it.

Here’s an example: Gretta was frustrated that Rob was going to band practice every week and sometimes going out with friends on other nights. Gretta was left to take care of the kids, and her resentment was building. She tried to talk about this in terms of fairness, saying, “You’ve been going out 1 and sometimes 2 nights a week, and I’m left doing everything. I want to start going out more often too.” This sounds reasonable, but it won’t get as good of a response as something like: “I realized that I want to go out more often. I feel cooped up, and I need some breaks. I need to go out once or twice a week. How can we work that out?” Rob will likely feel more motivated by this request. It starts with an assumption that Rob cares about Gretta’s feelings and wants her to be happy. She trusts him to care about her needs out of feelings of generosity rather than guilt or obligation.

If you trust that you’re each invested in the other’s happiness, then you can usually come up with creative solutions to meet both of your needs. If you use a fairness model, assuming every need must be bartered, you’ll never feel that things are fair.

Do you need help working through resentment or other stuck problems in your relationship? Set up a consultation now.