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One day my wife and I went shopping at Costco. I began to lead her in one direction fully expecting her to come along with me, but instead she seemed upset and asked me where I was going. Being the boneheaded man that I am, I didn’t tell her, but instead just motioned for her to follow me. Now she was beyond upset. In fact, she actually stormed off in the other direction. We did most of our shopping separately that day.
I was floored. I went to grab the double loaf of bread I had been aiming for, wondering what on Earth I had done wrong. I remember feeling very frustrated.
Why couldn’t she just follow my lead, I thought. Did I really need to explain to her that I just wanted to grab some bread?
Apparently, I made one other fatal mistake as well. The bread was at the front of the store. You never start at the front of the store. You go all the way to the back and work your way forward.
The point of the story is that I felt completely disrespected. All I wanted was for my wife to follow my lead through the store and not question which direction I was taking her.
Ladies, your husband thrives on respect. Without it, he can’t be fully confident in the relationship. It is just as important to him as feeling loved is to you. When he feels that you respect him he is strong and confident.
But it can be so easy to do something that feels disrespectful to him. Many times you might not even have a clue what you’ve done wrong. You can just see it in his deflated expression. Could it be that you’ve made one of these 5 respect mistakes?
1.- You act like his mommy: This is a common mistake that almost every wife makes. You want to help him, but in the process you treat him like a child. You remind him to brush his teeth or put deodorant on. You set his clothes out for him before bed. You wipe a smudge of food off his face with a napkin you spit on. But guess what? Your husband didn’t marry you to get a new mommy, he married you to get a partner. He needs you to support him without making him feel incompetent to handle his own affairs.
2.- You undermine his decisions: You tell your husband you want him to lead, but every time he tries you end up questioning him or going against him. He sets his foot down but you find sneaky ways to get around it. He doesn’t want a certain TV show on in his house but you argue about how it’s not so bad and watch it anyway. Let your husband lead already! Nothing communicates disrespect like when you put up a fight against his every decision.
3.- You take over with the kids: Your husband is trying to discipline or instruct the kids and you just have to step in and take over. Unless your husband is being dangerous, there is no need for this. He is perfectly capable of handling them.
4.- You answer questions for him: When someone directs a question at your husband he is fully capable of answering for himself. He doesn’t need you to interject with what you think his answer is. In fact, you might learn something new about your husband’s thoughts if you let him speak for himself.
5.- You don’t consult him on major decisions: Marriage is a partnership. And yet, you make major decisions without checking with your husband first. Where to go for the holidays or how to spend a tax return are big decisions that your husband should have a say in.
Do any of these sound familiar to you? If so, it might be a good time to apologize to your husband and set things straight.
Follow up post to this post: Do Husbands Need to Respect Their Wives?
Learn more about how you can build a strong Christian marriage by visiting Daniel Robertson’s website at http://www.godshelpformarriage.com. He offers a variety of resources to help Christians succeed in their marriages.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daniel_P_Robertson
http://EzineArticles.com/?5-Ways-Wives-Unwittingly-Disrespect-Their-Husbands&id=7024444
15 comments:
I appreciate your insights. I truly do. You've given me some things to ponder. Just wondering though... how seriously hard would it have been to say "Let's grab bread"?
In view of 1 Peter 3:7 ("husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers"), were you being considerate and respectful of her to expect her to follow you around without telling her where you were going? Most people communicate better with their dogs that you did with her.
It seems we all tend to oversimplify scripture and say men deserve all the "respect" and women deserve all the "love", but that's clearly not what God says. While "respect" does resinate stronger with men and "love" stronger with women, God calls us to treat both genders with both qualities. Yes, God clearly instructs the wife to submit to her husband, but in Ephesians 5:21 God tells both genders to "submit to one another out of reverence to Christ".
Again, I appreciate your insights, but it seems you were in the wrong too...
I did see a lot of things to change in my life. But I agree with the person who replied back. Communication helps a woman. She needs repent as well. You can't expect someone to just follow you without knowing where you are going. You also have to remember that a woman feels grocery shopping is here job and That's why she more than likely just walked away. She felt disrespected because you came shopping with her on her turf and didn't give her a chance to express her womanliness in the grocery store.
I completely agree with the commenter above. The points this post makes are tremendous, and wives - including myself - are all too often guilty of these things. I will be praying over this list often!
But it was disrespectful and unloving to not communicate with your wife, leave her hanging and frustrated, then blame her and write a post pointing out HER failure.
Men often often underestimate how much respect spells love for a woman too. Therefore, to be disrespectful to your wife is disobeying Scripture, when men are instructed to love their wives.
As the first commenter said, most people communicate better with their dogs than you did with her. You have indeed written a guide for women well worth reading: truthful, biblical, and convicting.
Perhaps, though, you ought to take a deep, prayerful look into what the respect/love paradigm really means.
I wish I could offer my comments privately, but I don't know how to do that. So after you read this, please delete it. The world is critical enough of Christians, and I want to honor scripture by being united with other believers. I do however feel compelled to reply, because its apparent you missed the mark in this situation and I think you are setting a bad example for christian men to follow.
I have two observations: 1) If a non-believing woman saw your posting, it would no doubt repel her away from Jesus. Why would she want to be treated worse than a child or a dog?! And 2) if Jesus saw your posting (which he did), it would probably sadden and anger him.
Jesus treated everyone (men and women, Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, even children, prostitutes, tax collectors and lepers) with dignity and respect. You did not follow his example and you disobeyed clear Biblical mandates with how you treated your wife (both in Costco and in your posting), yet you offer advice. And its shocking how you see her as the offender. Seems pharisaical of you, which is why I think Jesus is more than a tad angry with you at the moment.
Just like many women repeatedly error in your 5 examples, many men repeatedly error with treating their wives like you did. Both are a travesty.
I agree with the other comments, you would do well to take a deep, prayerful look at scripture. Maybe you'll find a topic for your next posting. You might also consider to publicly apologize to your wife to the same degree that you publicly criticized her.
I find it interesting that women defend themselves againt disrespecting men, like it's deserved. This writer states he was in the wrong. He was simply painting the picture of the situation so he could get to his point, which was....he felt disrepected because he wanted her to trust him, as he said "to lead her in the right directon". The wife didn't follow him because she thought what he was doing didnt make sense....to her. As he said, he later realized it would of made sense to start in the back as she wanted to do in the beginning. Yes both need love and respect. Yes we need to communicate to each other, but take responsiblity for your own actions...
Sir, I wonder how you would feel if your wife publicly posted your Costco story from her perspective, and told the world how disrespected she felt? Which, judging by her reaction, she clearly did feel disrespected. Because the way I see it, you were more than a little wrong yourself. What about "do to others as you would have them do to you?" Or is it okay to break that one if it's your wife? I certainly hope that your attitude toward your wife in every day life is not one of just expecting her to blindly go along with your decisions, no questions asked. That's not marriage or anything resembling true partnership. Discussion and communication (which she attempted in this situation, and you shut down) are essential to a healthy marriage. Fact: You make bad decisions sometimes. We all do. Your wife, your help-meet, can help you with that, and you should be grateful to God instead of taking it as an assault to your leadership. Humiliating as it must be for your wife to have her poor reaction put on display here, frankly, I am even more embarrassed for you and your public display of ignorance on how to love your wife and consider her needs above your own, as Christ did for us... I think, to preserve your own dignity, you should consider removing this post, and focusing your energies on learning how to really love your wife and give yourself up for her. Even better would be public repentance for your failure to respect her ability to perform her God-given role. The world is watching, sir. If this is what they see, why would they want anything to do with it?
I enjoyed reading this very much. It's nice to hear this from a husband's perspective.
I'm sorry, but you seem pretty disrespectful yourself in that situation! Your wife asked you a question and you refused to answer her. I think you may also need to be looking at what your wife needs to feel valued,and one of those things is communication!Your wife needed you to communicate with her, and you refused her that right. So, of course she was upset! You went with her on a task I assume she normally does alone, and she has a routine of how she gets that job accomplished. You were taking her away from her job at hand, so naturally she asks you why. Please don't make this article out to be how a woman should respect her husband, because I am sorry to say in this case, the husband didn't respect his wife. The list of 5 things also pertains to husbands as well, I would prayerfully consider removing or revising your post.
I am grateful for the reminder and it is great to hear a husbands perpective. As a wife I am guilty of askIng my husband to lead but undermining him when he does.
Ok, all, so I went to this guy's actual blog after I calmed down a bit (which I should have done in the first place) and found this follow-up post:
http://www.godshelpformarriage.com/do-husbands-need-to-respect-their-wives/
It was very good. He left no doubt in my mind that he does indeed believe he needs to respect his wife. They were newly married when this event occurred, and he freely acknowledges that he messed up.
I do apologize if I spoke too quickly or harshly in my last comment here. However, I still think that this post alone leaves a bad impression of how husbands and wives are called to interact in God's Word. I hope you will consider posting his follow-up post for clarification.
I think it's pretty appalling that any woman would jump up and defend a wife's "right to know" anything. It's not the wife's place to question the husband's leadership during the time of decision. It's her job to trust him and then if there is a different tactic she saw more fitting, she should discuss it privately with her husband later instead of causing a scene publicly. If this same story were written about a child defying the leadership of parents, no one would be quick to jump in and defend the child. Not saying that wives and children are on the same level but there is a chain of headship in a family and the point isn't to usurp that at any given moment but to respect and follow, even during decisions you may not see the point of. No one is denying a rational discussion later, but to say that the husband should follow the leadership of the wife instead of the other way around is quite frankly despicable.
Funny how too many people jumped right to the defense without fully reading the author's story. Makes me think that they were offended before they even opened this one. The author clearly states in the first paragraph that he was in the wrong by not talking to his wife I quote " being the bonehead man that I am".
Either the Husband is granted leadership by God or he isn't. He pointed in a direction and the woman (who had vowed before God and men to obey this man) decided that since she didn't understand the leadership decision she wouldn't follow it. In every form of human interaction, from civilian and military and police and politics, that's called insubordination and cannot be tolerated. If you took a vow before God then that's all there is to it. Be well.
I like your article a lot. It gives me some insight into what is going on in my husband's mind. I also think that women want respect too, not just love. In many ways, respect shows love. When you tried to lead your wife around Costco, it showed disrespect for her. That is why she was upset. It is good for the husband to lead the way God intended, but not to treat his wife like a child. My husband noticed, early in our marriage, that the only thing that made me angry at him was when I perceived that he was treating me like a child. I want respect too. Maybe I don't think the way other women do. I do accept my husband as the leader in our home and I treat him that way, but I still want respect from him.
Thank you for your article. I enjoyed reading it.
S
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