Are You Disrespecting Your Husband Without Realizing It? Here is the solution!

Are you disrespecting your husband without realizing it? Here are the signs you may be guilty, plus some simple solutions.

This is a guest post by Sonya Newson. She is a writer at Tiny Changes Matter. You can read her bio below.

There are so many wonderful ways to show someone you love them without saying it.

Yet, there are just as many subtle, twisted ways to show someone you don’t respect them without ever saying it. Love and respect belong together.

They should go hand in hand. In relationships, the lack of love rarely destroys the partnership. The lack of respect is much more fatal.

If you have reasons to ask yourself whether you disrespect your husband without realizing it, it’s a good sign you are even considering such a thing.

The more you are ready to face the nature of your relationship with your husband, the better your marriage will be.

We’ve also written about how husband can respect their wives.

What Is Respect?

Even spouses who know each other very well and for a long time sometimes have misunderstandings regarding the very basis of their relationship.

No matter how much it seems to you at the beginning that you know everything about your husband and that there is no problem that you will not be able to overcome, over time, as your life together goes on, you will increasingly see that there are many little things that you ignored before marriage.

To see how we do not respect or respect someone, we must, first of all, understand what respect is.

Respect means that we know another person’s qualities and flaws and respect them regardless of everything.

Respect his boundaries, consider his opinion even when you disagree with it, and do not belittle his preferences, character, feelings, or actions for any reason.

Although it may seem easy to respect another person, this is often not the case. Some people tend to feel disrespected quickly.

Some other person will not even notice something that, for example, immediately looks like disrespect to you.

This is because it is our subjective tendency not to respect reality.

Suppose your husband has a hidden feeling that he is worth less than others. In that case, he will quickly conclude that other people, including you, do not respect him.

That is why it is essential to make an effort to understand your partner in addition to love.

How Do You Know if You Are Disrespecting Your Husband Unintentionally?

If you occasionally notice that your husband behaves vindictively for no apparent reason, if he has an increased need to prove himself in public in front of your mutual friends, if he needs to provoke you in public, if he occasionally distances himself from you for seemingly no reason – these can all be signs that indicate that he has the experience that you have not met him in some situations.

An assertive man with healthy respect will tell you directly what bothers him and why he experienced that you do not respect him.

If you have such a husband, you probably won’t be particularly attracted to the title of this article.

However, men often have a problem recognizing and naming what they feel, so they are inclined to keep the issue quiet and ventilate in other ways.

In general, if your life values don’t match, you will quickly fight over basic things, and your husband can often have the experience that you don’t respect him.

Here are some situations that he will probably never say about, but that bother him:

• A man brought up in a patriarchal manner may experience disrespecting what you ask him to suck. No matter how funny and petty this kind of thing looks, it requires a serious conversation about your life values and how you will harmonize them.
• Suppose physical appearance is significant to your husband, and you don’t dress formally enough for his taste when you have to appear at some joint event. In that case, he may experience it as disrespect.
• Suppose your husband is elegant, and you are not so. In that case, the simple fact that you do not hang your jacket on the coat rack when you enter the apartment can be a reason for him to experience it personally and as disrespect.
• If you diminish the importance of his work because you are not interested in it and it is crucial to him, he may experience it as disrespect.
• You don’t ask for his opinion when making decisions that concern you alone and both of you as a couple.
• You don’t take his stress seriously. You tell him to shake it off instead of paying attention to how he feels.
• You use sex to get him to agree to something you know he instead wouldn’t agree with.
• You express disappointment with him when he fails to meet your expectations, even though you never pronounced them clearly in the first place. This feels particularly devastating for men.
• You use emotional manipulation to get what you want from him, making him feel used and betrayed in the end.
• You flirt with other men in front of him. This shows disrespect for him and points out that you lack self-respect too.

These are just some situations in which your man may feel disrespected.

The point is for you to realize that the reasons why he may feel disrespected may not be something huge but relatively small everyday gestures that you don’t even pay attention to.

Respect and Your Sex Life

Remember that the lack of respect will sooner or later affect your sex life and his libido.

If he is reactive, he may become sexually aggressive or even rude to you. It could be his unconscious desire to repay you for what you made him feel weak and humiliated.

There is certainly no excuse for rudeness, and such behavior on her part is something you should tolerate even if you feel guilty.

You are not responsible because he is emotionally illiterate and does not know how to tell you what bothered him, so he takes detours.

If he has a gentle temperament, he may have a problem with impotence because he may feel powerless due to your disrespect.

The additional problem is that the two of you will focus on his impotence instead of discussing what is causing the pain.

The third possibility is that he started to avoid sexual relations with you simply because he feels repulsion instead of attraction due to his unexpressed aggression towards you.

How To Stop Disrespecting Your Husband. What’s the Solution?

If you expect some miraculous recipe that will enable you to solve any challenge in a relationship in one go, you will be disappointed.

Open, honest, and direct communication is the best sign of respect. Still, it is also key to the survival of any relationship.

If either of you experiences expressing hurt feelings as a weakness, the need to hide authentic pain will block communication.

Men are prone to solving emotional problems by venting, coaching, having meaningful political conversations, and exhibiting passive aggression in many different ways.

The more inclined your husband is to camouflage how he feels, the greater the need for you to initiate open communication. You must show him by your example that he is safe and can allow you to see his vulnerability.

Here are some tips on how to talk with your husband about that:

• Communicate assertively, express your objections clearly, and ask precise questions
• Talk to your husband about your values, try to understand what is important to him, and come to conclusions about what you do that he might perceive as disrespect.
• Start a conversation about what you consider disrespectful to spontaneously invite him to share his opinion about it with you.
• Don’t take him for granted. Everything can be changed more quickly than you think.
• Surprise him with something he likes to show him that you respect his wishes
• Pay attention to how you treat him in public. Do you want to look like a happy couple or an unhappy combination of people who are not satisfied with each other?
• Tell him how you feel. It is also a way to show him that you respect him. We don’t talk about our feelings to people we don’t think are worth it.

You can also download our free checklist guide on how to safeguard your marriage.

Final Thoughts and Tips

The lack of respect in the relationship, as you see, sooner or later will affect every aspect of your marriage and family. Suppose you overlook that there is such a problem between you. In that case, it will deepen over time and turn an otherwise beautiful marriage into a battlefield.

To make sure you’re on the right track, it’s essential to think about the following things:

Boundaries – do you have them, are you able to communicate them, does one of you need to work on it?

Emotional literacy – do you recognize well and adequately name your own and others’ feelings?

Quality communication – how successfully do you convey what is essential to you to the people around you? Are you doing it in a way they can understand? To dig deeper into how to communicate effectively, enroll in our free course, ‘Effective Communication In Marriage.’

And remember – there is no such thing as a perfect marriage or a perfect person. It only depends on you how happy you will be together!

Summary

Here is what we covered:

• What Is Respect?
• How Do You Know if You Are Disrespecting Your Husband Unintentionally?
• Respect and Your Sex Life
• How To Stop Disrespecting Your Husband. What’s the Solution?

What’s Next?

Where To Find Help