Make Fairness a Foundation of All Your Relationships

Make sure your foundations are rock solid

Foothills of Mt. Whitney. Photo credit: Maude Mayes

Hi, Phil and Maude here. Recently we’ve been writing in two voices, but look: we can speak in one voice, too! Do you like one voice or two?

Life took over this week. We experienced a flurry of taking care of the important and mundane all week. The week after a holiday is often like that. Each of us was busy with our individual life tasks as well as things that keep our mutual lives running. We probably talked a bit less than usual, and each of us was out of the house taking care of this and that a bit more than is common. We still retired each night together to hang out and relax, but even then, one or the other of us was so exhausted that we just hung out, did the crossword, watched this or that, and went to sleep.

Everything got taken care of by one or the other of us. We reached those decisions according to who wanted to do it more / disliked doing it less, and we got that information from talking, hearing the tone of voice, and knowing the other person. There was no quibbling over who did what, no measuring or commenting on who was doing more or less; no anger or resentment on either of our parts about all the stuff either one of us was taking care of personally. There were no demands from either of us that the other person do ‘such and such’ instead of what they were doing.

Last night we were reflecting on this, and what became clear was that an essential part of how we made those decisions was fairness.

We’re not trying to get away with anything. We believe that things balance out in the long run. We act fairly because we trust that the other person also believes in and acts from fairness.

That trust is not one of blind faith—it comes from seeing the other person in action over time and in a number of different circumstances. We have come to know and count on the experience that each of us holds being fair as a core value. This sense of fairness is something that is foundational in our relationship, and is an important factor in the kind of peace we share.

Other people may have different ideas on what is fair: can I take some of your cookies for tea without asking? A good-faith trust in the other can usually resolve such differences, though Jonathan Haidt has found that for some people, authority and loyalty are more important values than fairness. Phil can imagine that, in those relationships, decisions are made according to the power structure. Not our thing, but you do you.

When you practice fairness in your relationships, it is transforming. It is a quiet yet powerful type of assurance that acknowledges without words that you are always on the same side, wishing the best for each other, and knowing that it is mutual.

This knowledge eliminates many of the difficulties and misunderstandings that come between people. The level of trust that grows out of this way of being together is critical when something happens that pushes one of those famous buttons that reside inside all of us.

When we rest in the knowledge that each of us strives always toward fairness, it helps immensely to transcend the reactions of those pushed buttons. The surety that we are each motivated by a sense of fairness encourages stopping, rather than reacting, and allows us to look inside and see what is happening within.

If you seek for peace within your relationships, where laughter and warmth pervade your exchanges, rather than anger and recriminations, then mutual fairness will give you that foundation.

Reading Corner

Here are some other posts we’ve written that speak to different aspects of this topic.

Why Fairness and Trust are So Important to Your Relationships “There are relationships built on power and dominance, but those do not create or further peace. For us, the key is a balanced relationship; it is balance without a balance sheet that we are talking about. What does that look like? We don’t count up how many times either of us has done our part in the upkeep of life activities or who is doing more or less. We have a rather delicious sense of how varied each of our contributions are, yet how balanced they are in the larger picture of our life together. At the core of this way of relating is a deep sense and commitment to fairness. A relationship built on fairness engenders trust and a commitment to act from that trust.”

How Trust and Peace go Hand in Hand in Your Relationships “Trust. What’s my personal way of experiencing that? Well, I think that trust and openness go hand in hand. To feel seen and connected, you need to be open and show yourself; whatever you feel, you share. That may sound extreme, but the route there is that you open up just a little, take just a little risk, and if you are greeted with acceptance and offered some openness in return, then your trust increases and your openness increases until you reach the experience that the two of you are operating from the same place. It’s a wild experience for me still because it presupposes a different kind of consciousness, or identity if you will, and there isn’t a space in material thinking where that belongs, so I am very much in awe of it, and that stands in stark relief against the rational mind.”

How to Deal With Decisions and Disagreements in Your Relationship “But once you know that you share the same values with someone else, you can deal with decisions and disagreements without generating rancor. It takes time, trust, honesty, and openness. You have to be willing to listen to the other person and find out what their wants and needs are in the particular situation.
There are multiple ways to solve a problem, and by exploring, you can find a solution that works for both of you because it will fit with your shared values. There is a solution out there somewhere, even though you can’t imagine it in the face of that daunting 100 ft. cliff. Here’s where the fun comes in. You can find a path toward mutual solutions: a place where both of you are happy, satisfied, and even enriched beyond your original version of the solution. It is a co-creative process of listening, exploring, and searching for the values and important aspects of what underlies each others’ wants, and then finding a path to mutual satisfaction.”