How Important is Respect in Your Marriage?

Most people think marriages end because of infidelity, sex, money, or a womans overall hypergamus nature. Many of the men I deal with all wonder why their marriage went bad when they are good looking, make plenty of money, believe they are good lovers, and overall desirable. While most women can never be completely satisfied and are generally miserable with their lives, the marriage often ends when the man suddenly realizes that his wife does not respect him and he cannot be around someone who blatantly waves this disrespect in his face. For most men, it takes a significant amount of disrespect from their wife before they would consider ending their marriage. Once they stand up for themselves, that is when things go bad because a woman will stay in a marriage if she can get away with her behavior especially if it is financially beneficial for her. Women will disrespect you for as long as you allow them to do it even if they proclaim to love you and will allow you to be the father of their children.

When I got married, I wanted to have kids and have an attractive wife. Most men who get married want the same thing. We also know that for most of us, getting a decent attractive woman to marry us is a pipe dream so if we are able to get a wife, we will allow quite a bit because of our goals of having kids and a pretty wife smothers everything else that matters including our own self respect. Once you make the choice to get married, you balance the desire for a family and a pretty wife with your own value as a man and as a person. It is the rare woman that wont test you regularly to see what she can get away with in your relationship. She may do it before you get married and you are seeing if what you have to tolerate from her is worth the possibility she could be wife material because of how she looks and your desire for kids. Once you get to the point where you get married, you have made certain decisions as to what you will tolerate and your wife will then push the envelope even more because she knows what your desires are and she has confidence in her appearance and as a mother. It is really a no win situation for a man and is a big reason why most marriages end in divorce or end up loveless and sexless with neither party willing to pull the trigger on a divorce for a variety of reasons.

I remember being so happy to be married. I had wanted a wife and kids since I was young. I had a great childhood and saw how my mom and dad cooperated in raising me and  my sister. They had very little money but I had an idyllic childhood growing up in 1970s Southern California. I certainly didn't understand the nature of women later than most men and got real life lessons in college falling in love and dating someone who tested me and manipulated me for 5 plus years because I allowed her to get away with it. Love is tough on a young man and we need to educate younger men about how to handle it because I am a big believer in marrying young when this type of love is possible. Whatever behavior and infidelity she was about that I never caught, I didn't have the strength to leave. Even a dumb man like me in his early 20s needed certain things to be shoved in my face by her before the relationship ended. I had no guidance or awareness. There was no internet and our parents from the 50s generation stayed married and didnt see the change in women that was coming with a new generation. She needed me to leave so I would be the bad guy and not her and her behavior was what she wanted for her to have a relationship with a loving man while also living the life of a disrespectful woman.

If you break up with a woman, no matter how much disrespect she showed you to cause it, its like all the bad she did does not matter. You  left her. Its is a common theme I would learn later in my marriage.  While women file 80% of the divorces, you have to ask yourself why as men we don't file more of them. While there are women who are simply leaving for someone better or were unfaithful or some other line crossing event that causes the marriage to end, most marriages end because the man tolerates so mush disrespect that the woman actually has no choice but to leave. She wanted the man to leave first to absolve her of her disrespect.

My marriage was doomed from the beginning. I loved my wife and felt so lucky to have found a woman who was physically what I would draw up who would have kids with me. This was also a blessing because I was unable to get married as a younger man. Getting married in your mid 30s is just asking for trouble as your wife if she is near your age or has been married before likely has very little ability to pair bond with you or any other man because of her prior marriage or a life spent in her twenties riding a carousel of men. While there was some level of behavior prior to the marriage, it was not anything I was going to rock the boat over. I wanted kids. She had her motives in that I was going to provide for her financially and she wanted kids as well. I always wondered how someone could say they love you yet disrespect you so blatantly but my desire for children and a pretty wife, especially as a man on the wrong side of 30, she probably could have done anything but cheat and I was going to stay. If the lack of respect starts early in the relationship or marriage it isnt going to last. If you let her get away with it, it will only get worse, but even if you don't, standing up to her might gain you some respect in her eyes, but you will question why you have to tolerate it and will not stay married.

I remember working and saving for a diamond ring for her like any normal man would do. I could see the indifference in her eyes as we walked down the aisle and said our vows in our small ceremony surrounded by her family and my parents. My father was dying from cancer but he got to see his son get married. I wanted him to have a grandchild so bad and hated myself for not having the maturity to find a wife who possibly loved me when I was young. The indifference in my wife's eyes spoke to me and as soon as we got home from the wedding, her ring came off, went into a jewelry box, and she never wore it again for our 8 years of marriage. I didnt think anything of it at first, but this was the disrespect that would cause me to resent her and not want to be around her. She was pregnant a month after we married and we had the most beautiful little girl. I was not going to rock the boat as I wanted more kids and saw the blessings of a family unit, but the occasional question about why you didnt ever wear your wedding ring was met with excuses which basically were saying, Im married to you and we have a small child so what are you going to do about it? I will do what I want. I am pretty and you are a good man who now has a family. I was not ready nor was I willing to leave. She was pretty, gave me a beautiful child, and I wanted more. She knew my character and she was going to use it against me.

Once the disrespect starts, it never stops. It is only dealt with when the man takes the harsh step to end the relationship or the woman meets a new man, who turns out not be what he promised her as he lied to her to try and get her to leave her husband or just screw him on the down low. You can communicate what bothers you and while it might solve things for a brief period of time, a disrespectful woman will return to her ways because she knows if you dare leave, you lose access to your kids and your wealth. If you arent making money or she realizes you arent providing a life for her financially, the disrespect only amps up because she will be looking for a better situation. She can be broke without you.  

Looking back I assume my wife had a plan to leave once it became financially best for her. She needed enough time in the marriage to get her kids, have me work and save in a way that maximized the money at the split and provide alimony so she could avoid working if possible. Women know divorce laws and if you are married to a woman who has been married before or her parents got divorced, she knows how it all works and will make decisions that benefit her monetarily at the price of love or her own happiness. As my marriage turned more disrespectful with an unequal contribution in the home( I worked and earned money while she was a stay at home mom who wouldnt keep the house even slightly clean or in order for starters), sex being used as a weapon of manipulation, and her preferring to spend time with total strangers over her husband, I still didnt leave. The question was where was the line as to what I would not tolerate. That is something all men need to answer preferably sooner rather than later. When my wife got pregnant with our second daughter, despite infrequent sex, she didn't act excited instead telling me " I guess you will be a father again". I was so excited because my desire for kids offset the level of disrespect that I allowed to fester for years despite me not allowing myself to be disrespected in any other aspects of life. I had ended friendships with men over less respect shown by these guys. Despite my inner anger, I couldnt do it with my wife. As a man who wanted a family and children, its like in order to get these things I had to tolerate disrespect from the person who is supposed to be your life partner and respect you as much as anyone. Why would a beautiful woman give up the prime of her life and have children with a man she does not love or respect? I never could answer that. While love is not easy to find, I always wondered why my wife, who had access to every type of man possible, would pick me when she clearly didnt respect or love me and was not afraid to show it once the vows were taken. Is the desire to improve yourself financially that important to women? While my wife was pretty and it is certainly an important part of why men choose a wife(no one hopefully marries someone they are not attracted to), I would not have married her if I did not love her, want kids with her,  or see her as someone I wanted to spend time with on a day to day basis. What men fail to understand is that disrespect seems to come natural for women and they will test you from the beginning and the relationship is doomed if you dont stand up to her. If you do stand up to her, the relationship will still likely come to an end sooner or she might alter her behavior and find different ways to manipulate you.

Even the biggest wimp of a man like myself has a line when it comes to respect. I allowed her to not wear her wedding ring, dictate to me how many kids we would have including her refusal to have a third child (despite plenty of money, beautiful children, and relatively easy pregnancy and births), prioritize friends over me, and watch the day to day behavior that showed I was nothing more than a sperm and financial donor to a woman who  had her own needs and motives that had nothing to do with love or respect that I could meet. Eventually everything built up over time and I left the marriage. I didnt want to be divorced with two small children, but after 8 years of marriage, and having some pride left in myself as a man and what I did for my family, I played the only card I had left. I walked out with no regrets after earlier telling her my concerns and divorce was an option if things didnt change. You know things dont matter when you have an honest discussion with your spouse and she has nothing to say or acts even worse daring you to do something. 

When I finally left, my wife acted shocked and hurt and played the victim. She didnt care that i left other than how it appeared to others. Men dont leave beautiful women with small kids especially when they didnt have a new woman unless the wife was that bad. She was that bad. After I left, she tried to alienate me from my daughters, offered me two days a month with my daughters for custody, and wanted every dime she could get using the system to destroy me. I didnt want to be divorced. I was never unfaithful to my wife. However, something told her from the very beginning that disrespect was acceptable and it spiraled out of control. While many might say I should have nipped things in the bud earlier and laid down the law, dont think for a minute that keeps a woman in line and makes her behave properly once you have married her and she has your kid. She has you because of the divorce laws and if you think you are now Mr. Macho and you wont be disrespected, it only emboldens her to make your life miserable more so than she has with the pattern of disrespect she shows up until the time you have the courage to do something about it. 

The more disrespectful a woman is to you during the marriage, the worse the divorce will be when it comes to everything from money to custody. Once you get the courage to stand up for yourself and you leave the marriage before the wife planned to leave you, she will destroy you. Coparenting becomes impossible when a woman deprives you of equal time with your kids. I had to go to trial to get equal custody of my daughters and the only reason I did is because my wife was computer addict who wrote volumes of Harry Potter fan fiction with characters in her stories named after her young daughters. If  had written volumes of stories about Harry Potter characters having sex with graphic language instead of working and handling my business as a man, I would have gotten supervised visits with my kids. A woman who does things like that her worst result is equal custody. When a woman is called out on her bad behavior and disrespect, there is nothing good about the aftermath once the divorce happens. She is mad that you had the courage to leave and she does not want to be called out for her bad behavior so everything she does it to come out looking like a victim and the courts will fall for it. It takes such extreme behavior for a man to give up on his marriage and leave his wife especially when there are kids involved. 

Every man I deal with who is considering ending their marriage(or whose wife left him) either has an unfaithful wife or has dealt with years of disrespect. Once they understand and can recognize this disrespect has been going on for a very long time, only do they understand the importance of it in their marriage. It works both ways, but women feel they can be the ones to get away with it, especially when they are married to a calm and secure man who sees the big picture and can let things go that the more macho, insecure, controlling man cannot.

The dynamics of respect and its importance in relationships really change once a man has been divorced or he has kids and that is not a quality he looks for in a woman. It is easy to be 40 plus years old, successful in your job, and has the divorce and kid experience behind him. He knows now not to tolerate the shit tests and disrespect. Even women who have been divorced still test you. They think that their value to men is the same as when they were young and fertile. Most men, myself included, can walk away from a beautiful woman who act poorly even if we care about them. Its tough to do as available women are few and far between, but if you arent going to have kids with the woman you meet, you see her in a different light. As a young man its often about the sex and you trade disrespect for sex because the women are in their prime. As you age a bit and want a woman you can respect and have kids with,  you look into her virtue, ability to be a mom, raise kids, and how she will appear as you progress in your professional life. Men tolerate a lot of disrespect during this time, because while sex may not be their sole thought like it was as a younger man, they know how hard it is to get a decent woman to marry and have kids with him. 80% of women reproduce with 20% of men in this world. These are not good odds and many dont realize it until they miss their window and end up childless. Once a man has kids and has gone through the divorce process, while he might want a quality relationship, his indifference increases and he will tolerate little to no disrespect from a woman no matter how pretty she is. There is a reason why divorces and single moms are miserable and divorced men and single fathers are generally happier once the pain and time progresses following their divorce.  

If you dont understand the importance of respect in a relationship, you are doomed to failure and pain. The lesson is when and how to tolerate what and to recognize that if, like most men, you want kids, what will you tolerate to get them. Women will push the envelope of respect as much as you allow them. As a man, if you are having problems in your relationship, this is a big reason why. It probably cant be fixed so you have to assess where you are in life and make a decision as to how to show you wont tolerate it any longer. Leaving my wife was one of the hardest decisions I had to make in life. It wasnt done with deep reflection, open communication, and the sudden realization I was with someone who could care less because I either tolerated it and die a slow miserable death, or leave and watch her get paid. She got my wealth and her freedom yet for some reason, she is the mean and angry one who still looks to shame and insult me when I am on the rare occasion forced to email her over an issue with our kids. 

Take control gentlemen.