Is it possible to get respect back in a relationship?

[MrsHelsBels74]

I don't respect my husband any more. Because of things that have happened between us over the years (been together 6, married 4) it's gradually been chipped away & now there's none left, on my side anyway.

Same thing happened with my first husband (different reasons why but lack of respect) so am now worried it's me & my expectations are too high.

I really want to make things work but don't know if it's possible.

Anyone?

Really hard to say without knowing WHAT has caused the lack of respect. If you've been married twice and but both marriages failed (or failing) due to you losing respect, it would not be unreasonable to worry that it might be you and your expectations. It may not be, of course, but without knowing full story, I don't think we can provide decent advice.

My answer, therefore, is POSSIBLY, depending on the circumstances.

Different things in both cases but this time round it's basically him promising things and not delivering on those promises, plus being (IMO despite him totally denying this) a bit tied to his mother's apron strings.

I do t know how respect can just return, I guess it takes time and behaviour changes but, if it makes you feel any better, I'm in a similar state ATM.

My DH is a good man. Great dad, step dad to my ds and hard worker. He's clever and funny and I love him. But.... Two years ago an incident occurred and I am let down by how he has allowed it to continue. And the more he does nothing, the more I feel my respect for him slipping away.

I'm sure there's lots of stuff he dislikes now, about me. We've been together 8 yrs and married 4. So, similar to you. I'm 50 years old and it is a second marriage for us both and heartbreakingly, what makes it worst of all is the fact that of all my previous relationships, I have loved him more than all of 'em put together. It makes me sad to feel this way.

I don't say it's all your dh's doing but certainly, loss of respect for a person is not good and can be a slippery slope to separation. Can you talk honestly with him? Does he know how you feel? That's the first step, I guess.

Did you not discover he was a bit tied to his mother's apron string before you married him? Things like that (unlike, say, DV which generally shows up later) tend to be noticeable early on.

Thing is, we are all different. There are probably things you do or have done that niggle at your DH. But they are who we are. We either accept them, put up with them, discuss and see if they can (and want) to change) or get out. At the end of the day, none of us are perfect, we will all make some mistakes. It's how we deal with them and work through them that counts. But sometimes we can put people on pedestals in the first place and can come crashing down even over something that a lot of people would think no more than a ripple on a pond.

Yes but I foolishly thought once our own children arrived that they would loosen those strings, but they haven't.

He agreed for us to try relate or similar so hopefully that will help.

And I fully accept I'm not perfect but DH will never verbalise that either.

What's the phrase on MN? "When people tell you who they are, LISTEN!" You knew the apron strings were there and assumed he would change? And why do so many people think children can magically correct things (in the sense we hear so often "we had a baby because things weren't great and it might help")?

That sounds blunt, and I don't mean it to be quite as blunt as that, but I think that it would be wise for you to have joint and separate counselling.

Probably not much help, but FWIW, I realised a long time ago that my ex-H had no respect for me and that was one of the big factors in my decision to end the marriage.

I found I could not respect someone who clearly had no respect for me - it's a 2-way process. And it was over big and little things, eg he would never, ever say sorry for anything - even something little like accidentally stepping on my toe or digging his elbow into me. And he would always also tell the children to stop saying sorry. Something I fundamentally disagreed with.

Bigger items - he wanted me to apologise to him after he had humiliated me in public - apparently it was my fault that he lost his temper with me!

Respect is a big deal - but as others have said, maybe your expectations are too high?

I don't think your expectations are too high. However, you seem to have settled for someone that fell short of those expectations at the outset, naively hoping that they would change. You wouldn't be the first person that had made that mistake.

I suppose if he really tackled this head-on, made some sustainable changes (rather than grand gestures that fizzle out) and possibly stood up to you a bit more ('DH will never verbalise' makes him sound spineless) you might change your view of him. But nothing kills a relationship like contempt and, sadly, I think that's where you are now.

I don't know. For me, and it sounds like for you, respect is massive.

I don't think you can get it back on its own - he has to change what he's doing that makes you disrespect him. He might not want to or be able to.

I'm not rude to him or disrespectful in that way, I'm just conscious that I don't have the respect I used to.

Also, we were ok before we had the children, didn't have them to fix anything. I can put up with him putting his family ahead of me, but when he puts them ahead of the boys that's when I get cross.

To be fair to him, he doesn't do it that often but now whenever he does it's like another nail in the coffin. I realise that's my issue & I need to find ways to deal with that, but it doesn't help when he tells me I'm imagining it & therefore how I feel is invalid & doesn't count.

It's not 'your issue'. You feel strongly about this and therefore it's important. If he can't or won't stop putting his family first, the honest thing to do would be to tell you 'I'm not going to change' and then let you make a choice whether you can live with that or whether it's the end of the line. To be told how you feel is a load of imagined rubbish is just insulting and disrespectful.

I wonder if counselling for you would also help as well as joint counselling. It could be a number of reasons why the respect has declined.. You may have different values, you may have from the outset expected change when it wasn't realistic, it could be that his behaviour has changed or it could be that you don't communicate effectively.

If your Dh doesn't verbalise does that mean you and he don't communicate well? i.e you don't feel heard, he feels you blame him etc?For communication someone on MN recommended NVC by M Rosenburg which is a good way of communicating so that each of you feel your needs are met.

I am also on a 2nd marriage which maybe ending and I'm keen to find out why - I suspect that I've married without really knowing what my needs were. So when H appeared to be a good guy I assumed we had similar values rather than testing the situation. When I had doubts I also stopped myself from listening because at that stage I had emotional invested. I now see that I needed to do more work on myself before I got involved with H. I also had warning signs, his family are totally toxic and selfish however I naively assumed that mild mannered H hadn't been impacted by them..which was a crazy assumption.