Men need respect, women need love

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deb1

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Sorry to start a new male/female thread. I realize that there are currently many such threads.

Men need Respect. WOmen need love. On both this forum and in modern life, I keep coming across this belief that men and women have different needs when it comes to respect and affection.

Before you respond, please read my statement. I find the above words offensive because they insinuate that women need emotional affection more then we need respect. This is untrue. I could not live with a man who did not show me respect and I would seriously doubt his assurance of love. I don’t care how many flowers a man brought me, how much time he spent giving me backrubs or cuddling me, if he didn’t respect me, I would not be happy. He could be shouting his love from the rooftops but if he puts me down or thinks that I am less intelligent then him then I would be unable to remain in the relationship. I would go so far as to say that if a magical genie appeared before me today and said that “You are only going to get two choices for a husband in the whole world. One respects you tremendously, the other loves you very much.Both are good Catholics, eager to be married and start a family, and are equally kind hearted. Choose.” I would choose the one who respected me. Love can fade away but if a couple respects one another then love can grow.

As far as men needing respect more then love…I think this idea comes from our current culture. Men are often unfairly put down on television and in the media. This disrespect is carried through into the home. I have come across many women who are dismissive of their husbands and often snide and sarcastic toward them. I abhor this trend in modern society and I do think that there is a tendency among some women to be verbal abusive toward their husbands. I don’t think that this means that men need respect more then love from their wives, though. In an adult relationship, both genders need equal amounts of love and respect.

Maybe I am just an odd female.:confused: WOmen do you need love more then respect and men do you need respect more then love? Which would you choose in a relationship if you could only have one or the other? Outside of our kids, is it possible to love someone that you don’t respect?
 
I think “I need respect” does not imply that I don’t need love. Or vice versa.
“Outward signs of repsect” are I think, not quite the same thing.

Perhaps it ought to be phrased differently…
“Men need outward signs of respect from their wives. Women neeed outward signs of love from their husbands.”
You speak of women being verbally abusive toward their husbands. Do you know of men who refuse to say “I love you” to their wives? Not “refuse to love” but “refuse to say words of love”.

To say “men need respect and women need love” is not to say that “men need only respect, not love, and women need only love and not respect.”
 
While you could respect someone without loving them, I don’t know how you could love someone without respecting them – at the very least recognizing their inherent dignity as a human person, loved by God.

One is not loving if they bring flowers but insult the one they give the flowers to – it is an empty gesture.

Perhaps what is meant is that men are more sensitive to whether love is being expressed in the form of “respect”. It is not that they need respect more than love; rather, being respected helps to tell them that they are loved.
 
I say - why choose? Respect AND love. The statement may have a shred of truth to it, that men want respect, women, love, but the reason might just be that the lack of them in each case has made those hinges creak louder. So don’t replace love with respect. Do them both, for the man and the woman. If women suddenly got the love they were after their disrespect radar would turn on again, andthey would realize they are missing that too. Same for men. If they get the respect they need they suddenly will miss love again too.

We can walk AND chew gum, folks.
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deb1:
Men are often unfairly put down on television and in the media. This disrespect is carried through into the home. I have come across many women who are dismissive of their husbands and often snide and sarcastic toward them.
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A comment on this: When you watch TV, count the number of positive versus negative depictions of marriages, and esp where male role is concerned. You will see overwhelmingly, the male is the butt of the joke. He is stupid, unvirtuous, unmotivated, and unattractive. I think this trend started 10 years ago. I don’t believe any of this junk about men. Rather, I have a high opinion of them. When this attack on masculinity ends, it will mark the start of the healing of the family. I think how the media and entertainment feel about the husband/father mirrors how they feel about Jesus/God. You can see the Devil at work here.
 
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papa_k:
(I clipped some of this post)

A comment on this: When you watch TV, count the number of positive versus negative depictions of marriages, and esp where male role is concerned. You will see overwhelmingly, the male is the butt of the joke. He is stupid, unvirtuous, unmotivated, and unattractive. I think this trend started 10 years ago. I don’t believe any of this junk about men. Rather, I have a high opinion of them. When this attack on masculinity ends, it will mark the start of the healing of the family. I think how the media and entertainment feel about the husband/father mirrors how they feel about Jesus/God. You can see the Devil at work here.
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My own comment: “10 years ago”? I think it started more like 40 years ago. I don’t remember a time when TV didn’t show men, husbands especially, in this way. It’s just more blatant now.
 
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Reepicheep:
My own comment: “10 years ago”? I think it started more like 40 years ago. I don’t remember a time when TV didn’t show men, husbands especially, in this way. It’s just more blatant now.
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SOme of the old reruns from the fifties seem to show women as being less intelligent then men. But that doesn’t excuse the trend in today’s media.
 
men need respect, women need love
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Blarney. Each is required, at least to some degree, for the other to exist. Those emotions grow together.

What man can say he truely loves a wife he does not respect?
What woman can say she truely respects a husband she does not love?
People need to quit reading all those stupid pop-psychology books and watching the equally ignorant tv shows and start using some common sense.
 
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Reepicheep:
I think “I need respect” does not imply that I don’t need love. Or vice versa.
“Outward signs of repsect” are I think, not quite the same thing.

Perhaps it ought to be phrased differently…
** “Men need outward signs of respect from their wives. Women neeed outward signs of love from their husbands.”**
You speak of women being verbally abusive toward their husbands. Do you know of men who refuse to say “I love you” to their wives? Not “refuse to love” but “refuse to say words of love”.
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:yup:
 
I agree with the earlier posts that men and women both need both love and respect. It is true, however that due to the unhealthy view of family in our culture that the need for signs of these things may be different for men than it is for women.

The role of mother in our culture has not been attacked so much, or at least not in the same way as the role of men. The feminists sought to raise the role of women by making them the same as men. In their demented view of things that meant that they needed to be doing more important things with their lives than being involved with raising children. Heck, they could do the really valuable and rewarding things in life like driving garbage trucks and going to war.

Society, however, was not so gullible. It never let women escape completely from their truly important role as mothers. So women, tried to become men and remain as women at the same time. Raise the kids on evenings and weekends, and drive the bulldozer from 9 - 5.

Men however, had lost their role in the family long, long before that. Probably around the time of the move from an agricultural society to an industruioal society. Once off the farm, their contact with the family was reduced to an evening and weekend thing (unless they had to work a second job - in which case they really had no significant contact with the family. They slept and ate at home and not much else.)

So somehow, society made the “breadwinning” thing out to be somehow really worthy of respect, but when the feminist movement set out to show that women could do all that as well or better than men - men were left with nothing. They are the butt of all modern jokes.

Add to this the fact that even in the most Catholic of circles -(this one not excluded) The idea that the man is the “head of the family” has virtually no practical application. The issue has been so muddied in our society that the result is that the man generally is the head of the family to the extent and only in the ways that the wife says so.

It is easy to see how the role of mother is worthy of great respect. It is a hard job, though, and thus the increased desire for demonstrations of love.

It is not so easy to see how the role of man has much value. There are always examples of men who are better at “breadwinning” than they are, and few men have jobs that are truly rewarding. Face it, most men have boring, meaningless lives of drudgery from sun up to sun down. What exactly is worthy of respect in moving heavy objects all day? Or entering parts numbers in a computer? Especially when you know that the wife could probably earn as much or more in a job of her own! Thus the need for signs of respect.

I don’t think, though, that God made men worthy of respect because they can move heavy objects. Unfortunately, the qualities that God gave them tend to be ignored or belittled.
 
And women need respect and men need love. Let’s get real.
 
Wives Be Subject to Your Husbands

A young couple preparing for marriage came to their priest for their last meeting with him before their wedding. The priest said all he had told them previously could be summed up in the scriptural command “The two shall become one.” At that, the nervous groom shifted in his chair and said, “Yeah? Which one?”

A priest probably would receive a similarly skeptical, even hostile, response from a bride-to-be if he talked to her about the husband’s “headship” in marriage. Even in worship we try to avoid the subject. An alternative reading for the feast of the Holy Family is Colossians 3:12–21. The rubrics give permission to omit the last four verses of that passage, yet those four verses are the only ones in that selection that deal specifically with family life.

Why on the feast of the Holy Family would anyone want to omit the verses that reveal God’s will for life within the family? Because too many priests consider verse 18 controversial: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.”

more…
 
How a Husband Should Handle His Wife’s Submission

Submit is a verb. Submitting is a voluntary action. That means it is something *we ourselves *do. It’s not something we make someone else do. Just as we can’t force another person to love us, we can’t force someone to submit to us either. Of course we can make that person do what we want. But then that’s not true submission. Submission is a choice we make. It’s something each one of us must decide to do. And this decision happens first in the heart. If we don’t decide in our hearts that we are going to willingly submit to whomever it is we need to be submitted to, then we are not truly submitting.

more…
 
**Wives, Obey Your Husbands

**Authority means the right to command. It implies the right to make a choice for another person. The other person, meaning the one who is commanded, does not thereby lose freedom. He can choose to obey or disobey. He may ask for a reason. He may cite circumstances that will influence the person who has the authority to change his command, to alter it, or to cancel it. But if the person having authority is not convinced, and re-states his command, then the one commanded has again the simple choice of obeying or disobeying.

more…
 
buffalo said:
Love and Respect

http://www.loveandrespect.com/images/crazycycle.gif
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I think that in this circle one could easily switch the gender pronouns and still be correct. If my husband does not respect me, I would find it difficult to love him and if I do not love him, then he will not respect me. It is also true that if the woman respects the man then he will love her. I do not think that one gender needs more respect/love then the other. Perhaps I am simply an odd woman but I appreciate and value the fact that my hubby respects my intelligence and confidence. This makes me love him more. I also respect him tremedously, which probably helps him love me more.
 
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deb1:
I think that in this circle one could easily switch the gender pronouns and still be correct. If my husband does not respect me, I would find it difficult to love him and if I do not love him, then he will not respect him.
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On the surface this appears to be true. When you get into the why things change.

Visit the website and you will find some really interesting stuff.

One point - in the book a survey was taken - men responded to the question would you rather be unloved or disrespected (paraphrasing) overwhelmingly replied that they would rather live alone without love rather than be shown no respect.

This is a very key indicator in the makeup of a man and smart women will want to understand this more. It is fundamental to men.

Love and Respect Book
 
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buffalo:
On the surface this appears to be true. When you get into the why things change.

Visit the website and you will find some really interesting stuff.

One point - in the book a survey was taken - men responded to the question would you rather be unloved or disrespected (paraphrasing) overwhelmingly replied that they would rather live alone without love rather than be shown no respect.

This is a very key indicator in the makeup of a man and smart women will want to understand this more. It is fundamental to men.

Love and Respect Book
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As I have stated before I must be an odd woman. In my original post I said that if I was to have husband who loves me or respect me, I would rather have one who respects me. Luckily, I have a man who does both.

So did the survey say that women would rather live without respect then love? My goodness, that simply seems strange to me. I am not doubting the survey, of course. I am only speaking about my own personal preferences here.
 
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deb1:
As I have stated before I must be an odd woman. In my original post I said that if I was to have husband who loves me or respect me, I would rather have one who respects me. Luckily, I have a man who does both.

So did the survey say that women would rather live without respect then love? My goodness, that simply seems strange to me. I am not doubting the survey, of course. I am only speaking about my own personal preferences here.
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If your husband loves you as the Catholic Church teaches he will also respect you. But women reponded to be loved is much more important to them than respect.
 
From the website

Many wives share, “I don’t feel respect for him. If he loved me, then maybe I’d show him more respect.” When a husband hears this, it deflates him in the same way a wife is deflated when hearing, “I don’t feel love for her. If she respected me, then maybe I’d show her more love.”

A business woman in New York wrote, “Remember me? I’m the one with all the Harvard degrees who had never heard of the concept of unconditional respect. Your message has had a profound, positive impact on our marriage… I have tried to understand the meaning of unconditional respect and to really respect (my husband). I’ve had the opportunity to observe in other couples the destructiveness of the wife’s lack of respect. I believe that you’re onto something huge here… what is really revolutionary in your message is the concept of unconditional respect… (T)he respect message itself is really gender neutral: We both owe each other unconditional respect, it’s just that the men give it more easily and need it more… It seems that in the old woman obey me’ context the women often were treated with neither love nor respect. Now our society has swung in the opposite direction to a love-dominated marriage and the men are suffering the most…”

Curious?

Do you owe it to yourself to find out what all of this means?

As a wife, you are always looking for insight and tools to enrich your marriage, if not save your marriage. Have confidence that this Love and Respect message will create mutual understanding.

**Beyond that, if it is true that your husband’s mother tongue is “respect,” he will be more prone to talk about the marriage when he hears his natural language. Men are motivated by respect. Many men live for respect. Emerson asked a hand surgeon, “Do you want your associates to love you or respect you?” He laughed. He said, “Respect me. Absolutely. If they loved me, I’d get concerned about it.” **

Sarah, Emerson’s wife, wants to create a sub-line to the Love and Respect marriage conference. “The conference your husband wants to attend.”

To be sure, he wants love, as you want respect. However, Ephesians 5:33 is teaching a wife needs to feel loved and a husband needs to feel respected. Peter echoes this to a wife in 1 Peter 3:2.
 
It’s too bad that there seems to be a “one or the other” dichotemy. I love my girlfriend with all my heart, and so I respect her. I think that everyone is pretty much on the same page, but this is not a subject that is easily articulated.

Love is the untimate. Love is all. I think that men and women want to know that they are loved. Because of their different roles and understanding, men and women typically read the signs of love differently. Men will see outward signs of respect and encouragement as signs of love. Women will see outward signs of affection and kindness as signs of love.

In a very real way, women submit to their husbands by encouraging their husbands to take a leading role in the family and by respecting them in their role; and husbands submit to their wives by showing them a kindness that they give to no one else, opening themselves up to them unreservedly, and showing them affection in a like manner. The way in which men and women show their love for each other is different, but they both show signs of the same gift. It is the gift of love… the gift of self.

We should look to the Holy Family to see the perfect examples of this “showing of love”. Mary, though she is the Mother of God, submitted to Joseph’s authority as head of the household, and followed him wherever he went. Joseph, in turn, gave his entire life to Mary and was a picture of gentleness, generosity, and kindness.

God bless,

Agricola
 
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