Respect

For years I've tried to understand why women place so much emphasis on love. Being in love, telling them that you love them, you know, making sure that they are told every day and more often if you can.

Now like other men, I have always seen the words "I love you" as just that, words. Something that is said far too often and become over used and hence have less meaning as a result. I'm only now starting to understand that it's what women want (and sometimes need) to hear often. It's what makes them feel wanted, needed and of course loved.

Now us men are simple, feed us, give us some lovin' and give us a TV and we are happy, right ? NOT !

Many of us, our fathers, grandfathers etc have gone through life questioning little. Why do we go through life not wondering why the words "I love you" mean less than they do to a woman ? Maybe we just don't care, there are more important things to life like being the bread winner, trying to be a man when the goal posts keep on moving and so on.

I had no idea until I read a book that explained that Respect is generally more important to a man than love. In fact respect is the way a woman can show that they love them.

Nothing says more than I love you than, "I respect your opinion, I respect your decision, I respect you".

Sure many people think they show respect, but in fact don't in a mans eyes. For example, I had this same discussion with my wife and within a few days, there she was mocking my need for respect in front of friends ! To say I was insulted, well what an understatement.

Upon confronting her about this I was politely told that she only highlighted to my friends wife the importance of showing respect to her husband, well if you took the mocking tone and smile from her face at the time, maybe just maybe.

To have spent the time explaining the importance of respect to her only to have her do this in the same week was akin to me telling her that I didn't love her.

Another example would be hiding things from your man. Whilst there would be some things that might be Ok. Generally, in a loving respectful relationship I would have to say there wouldn't be too many. So hiding the fact the bills haven't been paid, the kids school reports, that one of the kids has broken a window, whilst not telling him about these things can be explained by all sorts of reasons, this is what he could be hearing.

The bills haven't been paid ... "You can't provide for us"
The kids school reports... "I can't trust you to remain level headed"
One of the kids has broken a window ... "Let me look after it (because you can't)"

It's no wonder that so many men suffer from depression and why so many commit suicide when the subtle messages being sent from our family and friends (mostly unintentional in their case) and society (well that may be another story) tell us we are not loved or indeed lovable.

Maybe it's time for us all to learn to speak others love languages.