We all know infidelity and financial woes are a major cause of breakups and divorces, but the lack of respect in your relationships can be just as harmful.
Respect is the glue that binds every strong and loving relationship. And for men especially respect is essential. Like an aphrodisiac, it turns them on and lights them up.
Disrespect is insidious and we can be unaware we’re doing it. The most common way it shows up is when we feel we have to change a man; when in our mind we make him wrong. When this is our prevalent thought it shades the way we see him and react to him.
We question his choices and his thinking and make him wrong. We judge him and criticize his behavior. We believe we’re right and he just doesn’t know better. We do this because he doesn’t think or behave the way we do — but he’s not supposed to!
We disrespect a man when we say things like, “How could you do that? What were you thinking? I told you so! How could you be so stupid?”
If a man said these things to you how would you feel? I don’t know about you but it would make me feel like a child, like I was being accused of being a “bad little girl.”
When we make our man feel like “a bad little boy” he’ll naturally rebel. He’ll dig his heels in and become immovable. This is, undeniably, the worst way to try to change a man’s behavior. Yet sometimes we just can’t help ourselves.
A man experiences our disrespect in our tone of voice and the attitude we adopt of self-righteousness. Disrespect happens when we focus on a man’s mistakes and weakness rather than his strengths. Think about your weaknesses, do you enjoy having them pointed out to you?
We may be unaware of how we come across to a man because it’s developed into a habitual way we behave and talk.
We have to ask ourselves if we’re guilty of being disrespectful to our man. If we are the only way to change this behavior is to be aware of it. Awareness is the first step to change.
When we make this change we will once again see the man we fell in love with. He won’t be perfect but either are we. More importantly we’ll see him as he’s his own person, he’ll have our respect and we’ll feel like we’re in love again.
Release what’s been standing in the way of finding your special someone.
