“Is It Always Better to Know the Whole Truth?” 

A while ago I was fired from a job that I worked at for six years and loved. I wasn’t the last one to join the team. I was told that the reason for letting me go was that the business wasn’t doing well and that they would rehire me when they could. However, after a short while they hired someone else.

I was very hurt at the time, and I still feel the humiliation. I feel that if I knew the real reason why they chose to let me go I might get over it more easily. But then sometimes I feel not knowing the truth is saving me from deeper humiliation. What are your thoughts? And how can I put this whole episode behind me?

We humans are very sensitive to experiences of loss, rejection, and failure. Unless we have a way of addressing the hurt we feel, we may find that our emotions haunt us, lingering inside our hearts and popping up throughout our lives as they’re triggered by myriad experiences and events. The key to really moving on is to fully process and release the hurt.

But how?

You suggest that knowing the truth about what really happened might help. But then you recognize that this information might add another layer of pain. Perhaps their reason points to an intrinsic deficit you have — maybe they think you’re not competent enough or maybe they have complaints about your personality.

I once had a client who was struggling with firing an employee who had terrible body odor. No one could work near the person and gentle hints weren’t working. My client didn’t want to humiliate the person, so he wanted to give him an alternative reason for the dismissal. Of course, it would have been more helpful to that person to hear the truth so he could ultimately find success, but my client was more interested in easing his own discomfort than taking care of the employee’s overall wellbeing.

The same dynamic sometimes occurs in dating. Let’s say that a particular girl doesn’t understand why, after five dates, a young man ends up saying “no.” She’s hurting and desperately wants to know why. She pushes the shadchan to share the truth.