When “Respect” in a Marriage Starts to Mean Obedience

I want to talk about the word respect, because I hear this word come up in relationships all the time. “You don’t respect me.” “I’m your husband.” “You should respect what I’m saying.” “Why do you always have to challenge me?”

Okay, but what exactly does respect mean in your marriage?

Because sometimes what one person is calling disrespect is actually their partner disagreeing with them, defending themselves, asking a question, setting a boundary, or simply having a different opinion.

Let me give you an example. A husband tells his wife that he doesn’t like the way she handled something with the children. She explains why she made the decision she did. He becomes frustrated and says, “See, this is what I mean. You never respect me. You always have to argue with everything I say.”

But was she actually disrespectful? Maybe she wasn’t yelling. Maybe she didn’t insult him. Maybe she simply disagreed with him and explained herself.

That distinction matters.

If disagreement automatically becomes disrespect, what happens to her voice in that marriage? Eventually, she may start thinking it is easier to say nothing. She starts choosing her words more carefully. She thinks about how he might react before she brings something up. She may even start questioning herself: Maybe I am disrespectful. Maybe I do argue too much. Maybe I should just let things go.

Little by little, she starts changing herself to keep the peace.

This is where I want people to pay attention, because these dynamics don’t always begin with something dramatic. Sometimes they develop slowly. One person becomes more comfortable making the decisions while the other becomes more careful about expressing an opinion. One person speaks freely while the other starts rehearsing conversations in their head before they even have them.

And eventually that person may say something I hear more often than people realize: “I don’t even feel like myself anymore.”

That sentence matters.

Especially in cultures where many of us were raised with traditional ideas about husbands, wives, marriage, family roles and what it means to “respect” your spouse, we have to be willing to look at what we carried into our marriages without ever questioning it.

Tradition is not automatically unhealthy. Having different roles in a marriage is not automatically unhealthy either. If two people genuinely choose those roles and both feel valued, heard and respected, that is their relationship.

The problem begins when one person’s role requires the other person to become smaller.

Respecting your husband does not mean losing your voice. Respecting your wife does not mean agreeing with everything she says. Two adults can disagree and still respect each other. In fact, learning how to disagree without attacking, controlling, humiliating or dismissing each other is part of a healthy relationship.

Respect and obedience are not the same thing.

And I want to challenge both people here, because this isn’t about simply deciding that the husband is wrong and the wife is right.

If you are constantly defending yourself, ask yourself why. Are you truly being criticized and dismissed, or have you reached a point where you hear almost everything your partner says as criticism? If your partner disagrees with you, can you tolerate that disagreement without immediately becoming defensive?

And if you are the person constantly asking for respect, I want you to challenge yourself too. What does respect actually look like to you? Does your partner have the freedom to tell you no? Can they disagree with you? Can they question a decision? Can they tell you that something you did hurt them without you immediately turning the conversation back onto them?

Those answers will tell you much more about your relationship than the word respect ever will.

There is another pattern I want you to pay attention to. When someone feels repeatedly criticized, they can eventually start defending themselves before the other person has even finished speaking. Then the partner says, “See? I can’t say anything to you without you getting defensive.”

Now we have a cycle.

One person criticizes. The other defends. The first person becomes more frustrated and criticizes harder. The other person becomes even more defensive. Eventually neither person is actually listening anymore. They are both preparing their next response.

This is why I’m so big on understanding patterns. If all you focus on is the last argument, you’re going to miss what has been happening between you for months or even years.

So instead of asking only, “Does my spouse respect me?” I want you to ask something deeper: Who am I becoming in this marriage?

Can I still speak honestly? Can I disagree? Do I feel like an equal adult in my relationship? Am I constantly defending myself? Have I become afraid of upsetting my partner? Am I asking my spouse for mutual respect, or am I asking them to behave the way I believe a husband or wife is supposed to behave?

And maybe the hardest question of all: Have I confused being respected with being obeyed?

Marriage does not require two people to think the same way. It requires two people to learn how to live with differences without making one person’s voice more important than the other.

You can have traditions. You can have cultural values. You can have different roles. You can even have very different personalities.

But both people still need a voice.

Because when keeping the peace requires one person to continually silence themselves, eventually we have to ask whether what we are calling peace is really peace at all.

— Maria Shkreli, LMHC

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