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R-E-S-P-E-C-T
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Does your husband enjoy spending time with you? Do you consider time spent with your wife time well spent? How do you treat your husband around his friends? Do you let your wife engage with you in the decision making process? Do you recognize your wife’s strengths and encourage her to excel at them? How about your husband’s weaknesses? Do you criticize him and aggressively point them out to him? Do you enjoy planning and making your wife feel special?
Men and women might answer these questions in different ways or maybe these questions are a good test to determine the quality of relationships you are in. One thing is for sure. All of these questions have to do with respect for one another.The truth of the matter is both men and women desire respect but they show and want it in different ways. For a marriage to be successful there needs to be mutual respect. Men need women to respect them. More importantly a husband needs the respect of his wife. He needs to know that above all else his wife respects him and is proud of him. I have been married for 3 years and we celebrated our 3rd anniversary last week. I had read books about how important respect is for a man and I agreed with them. However, from my personal experience my response to my husband is far more valuable then I initially thought. If I show him respect first he responds in a powerful positive way.
In the same way I just want to know that he loves me. I know that he does. But every girl likes to be told. I want to know and feel his love. Not only does he tell me that he loves me he also shows me in small ways that he appreciates me. Helping me walk or being patient when I want to do something myself are a couple or examples. When we are discussing something if he vocalizes that he values my opinion I am happy from the beginning. I want to know he loves me first, but respecting my opinion is also important.
We have all heard the saying “opposites attract.” It would also be true to say both people need and want respect. Men and women need the freedom to express themselves. Men and women need the same thing they just express their needs differently.
When my husband and I met we were in our mid-thirties so we had the advantage of experiencing adult life before finding that “special person.” We had the advantage of knowing who we were and what characteristics we needed to have in the other person to be happy. We knew who we were so we did not look for the other to “complete” us, but rather we wanted to view the other as an extension of ourselves. When we look at the other person in this way the idea of mutual respect often takes center stage.
The previous mentioned questions are 5 areas that my husband and I have truly tried to show respect to each other.
1. Timing. At times this one can be the most challenging. I think it is because we both have so many different areas pulling at our time. We found it works best giving each other freedom during the day. We try very hard to eat lunch together a minimum of 2 times a week. We schedule other times and dates being mindful of my husband’s school schedule . Also we are committed to spending as much time together as possible so we do value each other enough to keep uninterrupted time for one another.
2. How to treat each other around other people. This is so important. We have an unspoken rule that we never say anything but positive things in front of others. This way we truly enjoy getting together with people without any worries.
3. How to engage in decision making. Sometimes my husband has a strong opinion about something and of course I have mine. However, what we do have working in our favor is we have agreed on our future goals. We have to work together which means at times we must be willing to compromise and make a firm decision together. Respecting each other means that we have to look past ourselves and when making decisions sometimes it is best to give in.
4. Recognize each other’s strengths and weaknesses. This is another tough reality of respecting each other. Everyone has characteristics that we enjoy and others that we need to ignore. Encouraging each other to embrace and cultivate each other’s strengths is a stable way to show that we are good at something. At the same time most of us have had our weaknesses pointed out to us by our spouse (at least once). So we don’t need them repeatedly pointed out. We also do not need to be belittled for any reason. There are plenty of ways to be respectful rather than resorting to harping or making someone feel disrespected.
5. Making your mate feel valued or special. This one is by far the most enjoyable one. My husband really excels at this. Not because we go on a lot of dates, but what I like is that he strives to value me in the small daily tasks. Saying “I love you,” or “I appreciate you,” is probably as simple as it gets and yet those things are the things I remember most. I asked him how I can make him feel special and he said the exact same thing.
I believe we all desire respect. We expect others to freely give it away. There are times when we could improve our skill by being very intentional with how we treat our partners.
