4 Easy Ways to Show Respect for Your Husband

Respect is a two way path. If you want to receive it you must first give it!
R.G. Risch

Just as you need the man in your life to love you unconditionally, even when you’re not particularly lovable, your man needs you to demonstrate your respect for him regardless of whether he’s meeting your expectations at the moment.
For Women Only, Shaunti Feldhahn

Respect

True confession there are times in our fifty years of marriage that I have been a complete moron and jerk. And there have been times when my wife has done an excellent job of pointing out my faults and failures and letting me know how I failed to meet some of her needs. And where did that get us? Nowhere good!

So what did we do to change that? I became more focused on how I demonstrated love to her, and she began to be more intentional about showing me respect.

The New Testament book of Ephesians 5:33 NLT, “So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

So, with that in mind, let’s jump in.

Respect is a deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

In today’s post, I will reveal 4 Easy Ways to Show Respect for Your Husband. I encourage you to pick a couple of them and try them. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Men Need Respect

Men want to feel competent, needed, and respected. He wants to be held in high regard and shown consideration and appreciation, even when he messes up. He wants to be seen as a competent hero. He needs someone who believes in him even when things aren’t going so well.

4 Easy Ways to Show Respect for Your Husband.

1. Respect His Judgment – We men deeply need you to respect our knowledge, opinions, decisions, and judgment. So many men wish their wife wouldn’t question their knowledge or argue with their decisions.

Over the years, hundreds of men shared that their opinions and decision-making ability were actively valued in nearly every area of their lives except at home. Some men said their coworkers trusted their judgment more than their wives.

2. Show Some Respect for His Abilities – We like to try and figure things out on our own, and if we get stuck, we will typically go to YouTube or call a friend. It may sound silly, but we feel we have conquered something when we can fix a problem. Unfortunately, all too often, well-intentioned women try to help him by suggesting x, y, or z. The issue is we interpret those actions as distrust. We feel like you don’t think we are capable.

We need your encouragement and affirmation. We need your support and encouragement when we feel discouraged, down, or defeated. When your man knows you “have his back,” the walls that protect your marriage become more robust. Encourage him by reminding him of God’s work in his life. Pray for him.

3. Be Respectful in Communication – Proverbs 18:21a says, “The tongue can bring death or life” (NLT). Ladies, you have almost magical power in how you communicate with men (husbands and sons) to build or tear them down, encourage or exasperate. Just last week, I was sitting with a couple in my office. The husband shared this thought with his wife, “When I feel you say something disrespectful about me or some of my ideas, I think, I can’t believe she has no idea how stupid that makes me feel.”

4. Demonstrate Respect in Public – Most women have no idea how important this is. In the past twenty years, there seems to be an infectious disrespect for men, primarily through various media outlets, from television, movies, and other media. One of the most hurtful things a woman can do is correct, criticize, put down, or question their judgment in public. While you might disagree with us, private is the best place to deal with this.

While we are on the subject, be sure you don’t slam us or be negative behind our backs. Having said that, we all need trusted friends with whom we can vent, but they typically need to be older, more mature, and people who can keep it to themselves.

Are you happy with where you are? If so, outstanding! Pick one or two of the above suggestions, and try them out as a pilot project with your honey if you need some work.

I’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email about 4 Easy Ways to Show Respect for Your Husband.

Building and maintaining a life together can be a daunting task. But when you and I realize we have at least three sources of help, things tend to go better.

What are those three sources?