As a married woman, you must have profound experience in what you need in your marriage. And you can not deny that a married woman’s highest need is to feel loved. Whereas, men and women want things differently in their marriages, a married man’s highest need is to feel respected; but like many women, maybe you also lack an in-depth understanding of how important your respect towards him is for him, not to mention knowledge regarding how to respect your husband in your married life.
First, let’s talk about why you should give respect to your husband:
- Your respect gives him confidence and motivation to confront difficult times.
- Your respect expresses your trust in your husband. Unless trust exists first, respect will not exist.
- The respect towards your man acknowledges his leadership and gives him more initiative in the relationship, thereby making him more of a partnership.
- Your respect gives more encouragement to your husband and gets him to desire you more.
- Your respect makes him feel cared for and safe in the relationship.
On the negative side, by understanding the negative effects of disrespectful behavior in your marriage, you may better understand the importance of respect to your husband:
- Disrespect will deeply hurt him:
Cutting him down in front of someone else, nagging, and dismissing his needs and wants can cut him to the core. The constant disrespectful behavior can lead to a strong feeling of being unloved in his heart; over time, inevitably he will doubt whether it is worth staying in this marriage. Although the negative effects of disrespectful behavior vary from couple to couple, there is no doubt that disrespect drives a wedge between a wife and husband: when a husband feels deeply hurt by his wife’s disrespectful behavior, he tends to become emotionally distant or unavailable in the relationship; and on the other hand, it is also embarrassing for a wife to show his husband respect while she is feeling disconnected. But anyway, every man wants his woman to treat him with respect, and this emotional need is especially strong when the relationship is deteriorating.
In a nutshell, disrespectful behavior has a strong impact on your marriage; and if you want to fix the broken marriage, showing respect to him is an important step that you need to take.
And the following are 7 practical tips on how to respect your husband:
1 Don’t put your husband down:
Keep in mind that a couple should act as a team. The two of you should be loyal supporters of each other in married life. If you constantly criticize your husband when you work together to do chores, it can unavoidably bring him an uncomfortable sense – something feels like you are bored of the team or you want to abandon the team.
Surely, you are suggested to avoid criticizing him, but it doesn’t mean that you should not be open with your family members and friends about your relationship. You need some people with whom you can freely talk about your relationship issues, and an outside perspective often can be used as valuable reference; but in case you realize that you are caught in a seemingly endless cycle of putting your husband down in front of others, you’ve got to put a stop to it; in a relationship, constant criticism and nagging is never helpful to each other; instead, you need to let your husband know that you still appreciate him, especially when he fails to do something; even sometimes it is also not wrong to take a moment to openly brag about him when he feels deeply self-abased.
2 Believe he has good intentions:
When you find yourself focusing on the bad side of your husband, immediately alleviate your mood by shifting your focus to something else positive, such as your husband’s positive qualities, or great things that he ever did for you. To remain in a safe and secure state of mood, a key is to believe he has good intentions first; even if he screwed something up, first, tell yourself that he didn’t intend to do that, instead of thinking the worst of him; adopt a more tolerant attitude towards him, and tell yourself that everyone makes mistakes inevitably; you can learn from those things he did poorly so that things will get better, and you might see it as an opportunity for the two of you to gain mutual respect – the more you respect and trust him when he behaves badly, the more he will also respect and trust you in return if you behave badly in the future.
3 Listen to him:
Attentively listen to him, and don’t cut him short when he is speaking to you; men are task-focused and usually have a one-track mind about things; it should not be regarded as a defect, men are naturally created this way. While your husband is trying to clearly and completely communicate his ideas or opinion to you, your repeated interruptions may make him bored, confused or frustrated. No matter how excited you are about what he is saying, don’t rush to deliver your own suggestions and clarify your questions/opinion, make sure to let him finish his speech; in this way, your husband can easily feel that you are trying to show him respect. By contrast, because of too many interruptions, probably he will lose the desire or will to fully express his feelings and opinion.
Once he starts to speak to you, you had better stop other things that you are busy with. Unlike men, women were born to have the excellent ability to deal with multiple tasks at the same time; but in your husband’s view, when he is walking up to and talking to a person who can’t stop the work at hand to have a face-to-face talk with him, he tends to feel like a noisy appliance. Hence, when the conversation starts, try your best to stop what you are busy with, turn your body toward your husband, and intently listen to what he is saying.
In addition, in order to foster open communication between you and him, don’t attempt to domineer the conversation, otherwise, he will have to reduce the amount of talk.
4 Speak softly even when you are in a fit of anger:
Through the tone of voice, a speaker can communicate respect or disrespect towards a listener. A gentle answer helps turn away his wrath, but harsh, bitter words stir up a listener’s anger. A raised voice is widely perceived as a disrespectful behavior by people, especially men; but in many cases, you just attempt to take this approach to overpower so that you can get your point across, and you don’t intend to beat or berate him verbally.
Furthermore, remind yourself to control your tone of voice when you are angry. The same comment may produce exactly opposite meanings using different tones of voice, for example, the words “Open the door.” can be spoken with different attitudes (e.g. annoyance, disgust, sweetness, and adoration).
Besides a soft-spoken manner, you may consider the use of written words. But, whichever communication way you use, a key point is to remain gentle and composed. As long as you grasp this point fully, the odds are you can greatly avoid making him misunderstand that you are showing contempt towards him; and when he feels that he is having a gentlewoman behind him, he feels more masculine.
5 Don’t always pick on him:
Stop picking on your husband. For example, if you notice that he is pronouncing a word incorrectly, or when you are seeing him doing the washing-up and the dusting without acting in your expected way, do you usually have the urge to correct him? The next time when you find his minor issue or tiny problems occasionally, you don’t have to teach him or correct him immediately, you may ask yourself first,” Does it really matter if I don’t correct him right now?” Why should you resist such an urge to correct him? You have to be aware of a fact – your constant corrections are easily perceived as disparaging behavior by your husband; the more frequently you correct him, the more discouraged he feels.
For many men who complain about the lack of respect in their marriages, they have got accustomed to reciting a mantra, like “I would rather keep my mouth shut than hear her fuss”. So, do you realize that your husband has a similar experience?
6 Treat him as an adult:
Since you had kids and acted as a parent, probably it has become a second nature to you to communicate with your man as you do with your kids. Obviously, he complains about such an inappropriate attitude towards him; even your children increasingly want you to treat them as a little adult as they grow day by day. So, make sure you always speak to your husband as an adult that deserves your respect, especially in the presence of your children, because they will see their father as an authority instead of a peer (or even worse, another child of yours).
7 Give words of affirmation to your husband:
In many children’s eyes, their dads are their big heroes. Actually, first and foremost, a man also wants his woman to see him as her hero. But in case he realizes that he can’t live up to her expectation or that she sees him as second fiddle, he will start to have a thought of seeking affirmation elsewhere; and if you wonder how to give affirmation to your husband to make him feel more respected, you may follow the 3 simple steps below:
- First, in the next coming 30 days, avoid saying anything negative about him to anyone (your family members and your best friends are included).
- Secondly, during these days, try to find one positive thing that he has done for you, don’t be stingy to give him praise or thanks to him. You might as well tell it to him, his family or intimate friends.
- Thirdly, when given the opportunity, do a small act of generosity or kindness for him in daily life.
Whichever way you try to give affirmation to your husband, you should be aware of a feature of our psychological wiring – our feelings follow our actions and words; so, the more you choose to focus on your husband’s wrongdoings that make you feel dissatisfied with him, the more dissatisfied you are going to be; instead, the more you choose to focus on positive sides of your man, the more you will be struck by his positive character traits; naturally, you will respect him more.
The final word:
In a marriage, respect is sweet to a man’s soul, and respect is what every man yearns for.
But there are many times when it is not easy for you to give your husband respect. Showing him respect is one thing, and letting him earn respect from you is another, and how to respect your husband can be a complicated and hard-to-handle issue for you;
If you need more tips about how to meet your husband’s emotional needs and remain happily married, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience:
Learn what to say to your husband – Make him obsess about you again…
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
5 tips on how to make your husband feel loved and respected.
How to make your husband feel appreciated – Show him appreciation.
How to deal with your man’s ego – The male ego in marriage.
The 5 most important emotional needs of a man – Meet his needs.