That’s Not Fair!

Children have an instinctive distaste for inequality. “It’s not fair — he has more than me!” “Why do I have to do it when she doesn’t?” “No one has to go to bed this early except for me!”

Unfair treatment feels unloving implicitly implying that others are more deserving. Unfair treatment also feels wrong — like something has fallen out of order in the universe. Perhaps most importantly being treated unfairly can cause significant hurt anger and resentment causing serious harm to relationships.

Unfair Spouses

That being said it’s surprising that so many spouses treat their partners unfairly. Certainly they must realize that unfair treatment feels bad. They themselves would not enjoy being treated unfairly by anyone else. So why do they brazenly treat their significant other this way?

Unfair spouses fail to do marital arithmetic. They divide ten by two and somehow get nine for themselves and one for their spouse. “I need to go to Israel to recharge. Yes I know I’ve been there four times this year and you’ve only been there once in the past five years but this is really important to me. Bye.”