A bit about me – my purpose is to fulfill Titus 2:3-5.
- Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
I do not teach men. I only write for women. I write about the things I WISH I had understood before I got married in 1994. My primary purpose here and on www.peacefulwife.com is to teach women to live for Christ wholeheartedly, to teach about godly femininity and to prepare women for godly marriage/relationships with believing men. My husband has a blog for husbands at www.respectedhusband.wordpress.com
** I am always going to assume that you are dating a godly man who sincerely lives for Christ and desires to obey Him and honor Him. I am also always going to assume that you want to sincerely live for Christ, obey and honor Him. If you are dating a guy who does not put Christ first and does not have real fruit of God in his life, he just says he is a Christian – it is time to do a lot of serious praying and seeking God’s face and His will. Please choose to seek and obey God in all things. Nothing is more important than that!
What disrespect means to a man can vary a bit among different individual men. But here are some general ideas:
- telling him what to do/how to do it/when to do it
- having a critical spirit and constantly putting him down with criticism
- acting holier-than-thou, thinking you are better than he is, more spiritual, etc.
- jumping in to help if he didn’t ask you for help – he probably likes to do things on his own unless he asks specifically for help
- asking “why?” ”Why would you do it THAT way?” (implies you think he is incompetent or stupid)
- putting him down in front of other people, or behind his back
- joking at his expense
- complaining about something he spent time and effort doing for you
- demanding he do something
- body language like rolling your eyes, sighing, huffing, hands on hips, fingers tapping, throwing your hands up in the air – like you think he is an idiot
- using an “angry mother” tone of voice
- scolding him
- verbally attacking him
- mothering him as if he cannot make his own decisions properly
- not dropping an issue – continuing to pressure him and push him and not letting something go that he doesn’t want to talk about right then
- expecting him to talk RIGHT NOW about some very important issue (some men need a bit of time to think before they are ready to talk or need a bit of notice before an important discussion)
- bringing up past sins of his that you had forgiven already
- comparing him to other men
- flirting with other men
- thinking that your “feeling loved” is more important than his “feeling respected”
- thinking that you are “always right” and he is “always wrong”
- yelling, throwing things, cussing, hitting (this stuff is EXTREME disrespect – please, do NOT go there!)
- labeling his weaknesses and sins as much worse than yours – thinking you are morally superior to him
- making a really small issue more important than the relationship
- correcting him
- taking over and trying to force him to do things
- texting/calling him constantly (that can be very smothering)
- interrogating him
- acting suspicious and spying on him
- assuming the worst about him
- caring only about your feelings and not about what is important to him and how he feels
- seeing him only as something to be used instead of a real person with real feelings to be loved and admired
- putting him before God in your heart (idolizing him) – expecting him to be responsible for your happiness instead of being responsible for your own happiness and finding all your contentment in Christ, expecting him to meet needs in your heart that only God can meet
- trying to change him
- acting like being a guy is wrong, as if men should be just like women
- answering for him
- not listening to him and REALLY stopping to hear his heart
- taking over his life and trying to control him
- trying to “help” him in his relationships with other people because you don’t think he can handle his own relationships
- apologizing and then saying, “BUT if you had done X…” (that negated the apology!)
- being a black hole of unending neediness and insecurity (expecting him to meet the deepest needs of your soul rather than Christ)
- acting like he is incompetent, incapable, irresponsible, etc.
PS – a lot of this applies to how we ought to treat everyone. Time to overcome the famine of respect in our culture!!!
Here’s a little secret about men, ladies!
They don’t do a lot of wonderful things for people when they feel disrespected by them. If a man is feeling disrespected, he is not going to care about your feelings very much – or about what you want. If you want him to care about your feelings, treat him with respect and care about his feelings.
Men’s needs are important, too!!
Let’s focus on becoming the Christlike, Spirit-filled, godly women of character that God desires US to be! I pray we will be a blessing to all of our brothers and sisters in Christ in the way we treat others.
AS WE UNDERSTAND MASCULINITY – WE UNDERSTAND MORE OF GOD’S HEART
God also desires us to respect Him – to reverence Him. More than that, we are to fear Him and tremble in His presence. We so easily disrespect God and don’t even realize it. I think it is fascinating that many of the things that are disrespectful to men, are the same things that are disrespectful to God. As we learn about this world of masculine respect, we also get a peek into God’s character and heart. Clearly men are not deity. They are sinful humans just like we all are. Not everything is completely transferable – but I think there are some important things to consider here. As we study godly masculinity, we get such an amazing glimpse of God, Himself!
WHAT IS DISRESPECTFUL TO GOD?
- telling Him what to do, making demands
- trying to control Him
- putting ourselves in His place and trying to take over His position
- trying to change Him and make Him be what we want Him to be
- assuming He is just like us
- treating Him with flippant familiarity
- not having proper trembling/fear for His power and strength
- not appreciating His wisdom
- not listening to His Words
- acting like He is incapable, incompetent, small, powerless and wimpy
- undermining His authority
- having no faith in Him
- not trusting Him
- being unfaithful to Him
- maligning His Name by our ungodly living or the way we talk about Him to others
- speaking poorly about Him
- pride – thinking we are right or we know better than He does
- trampling the covenant He has made with us by His blood when we put our trust in other things/people instead of Christ
- acting like we are better than God
RELATED
What I Admire about Godly Men part 1
What I Admire about Godly Men part 2
Sister in Christ
January 4, 2014
I have a question about the point : “jumping in to help if he didn’t ask you for help – he probably likes to do things on his own unless he asks specifically for help”….
I thought we were created to be helpmeets. Aren’t we to help our man?
Though this does kind of make sense- that is the fastest way to make my young adult brother mad: help him do something. He likes to do stuff by himself his own way.
peacefulwife
January 4, 2014
Sister in Christ,
We WERE created to be helpmeets! But – here is the thing a lot of women assume: “If someone looks overwhelmed, the loving thing to do is jump in and help him/her. That is what I would want someone to do for me!”
But for a man, if he is working on fixing his car, for instance, and his friend or dad stopped by and just took over and started fixing the car for him – that would actually be pretty disrespectful. It would communicate, “I don’t think you can handle this on your own, so I am taking over from here.”
One big reason men don’t tend to help with chores around the house is that their wives don’t ask. A lot of men assume that their wife has it under control unless she asks for help.
A woman would think, “Why doesn’t he see that I am overwhelmed and need help? He is being unloving!”
But a man will generally wait until someone specifically asks for help – or ADVICE – to give it.
Men pride themselves, often, on being able to figure things out themselves -directions, putting something together, fixing something…
You could ask if he wants help. But probably only once. And then do not “help” him if he says he doesn’t need help. Unwanted help is not really help.
Great question!
Much love!
peacefulwife
January 4, 2014
PS
Once a couple is married – they will work out the way they want to divide labor. A wife IS helping her husband by taking care of the house and children and chores and cooking and shopping – if that is what they agreed she would do. But if he said he would take care of something, and then she did it herself – that would be a problem, usually. Unless there were extenuating circumstances – he was super busy or sick. Some men would be ok in situations like that with their wife taking over, some wouldn’t. It would depend on the man and the exact issue.
JC
January 4, 2014
To pipe in a comment, I think she CAN ask if he needs help. The main concern is “taking over,” probably.
peacefulwife
January 5, 2014
JC,
I agree. 🙂
Sister in Christ
January 4, 2014
Wow! Thanks for the input. I never would have thought of most of that. And now I understand why I thought a lot of guys were lazy because they didn’t help when their lady obviously needed it.
jack
January 5, 2014
This applies to both men and women:
I think one very important thing that shows respect is to avoid ever telling another person what their motives are.
For example:
“You’re only saying that because you’re jealous”
I try to make a practice of never telling someone what their motive is, since I cannot know their mind or heart.
peacefulwife
January 5, 2014
Jack,
Great point!
This is part of “love believes the best” and love does not assume the worst in others.
I used to regularly assume my husband had evil motives toward me because he didn’t act like I did. I know – SO prideful and judgmental on my part.
Now, I assume that he loves me and that I just don’t understand his perspective instead of assuming “He doesn’t love me. He’s trying to hurt me.”
Turns out – Greg always did love me. The times I felt unloved were often times that he was responding to my disrespect. Or, they were times when I didn’t realize how different Greg is from me and didn’t know and understand his heart.
The only times I would consider saying something like “you’re just doing that because you’re jealous” would be in a playful, flirty way. But it would have to be a situation where it was blatantly obvious that he couldn’t possibly be jealous.
Ie: if I have to go to jury duty. I might playfully say “you know you are so jealous!” 😉
But I agree that it is unwise to judge someone’s motives.
Thanks for the insight!
gwallaby02
January 7, 2014
It seems that some of his complaints are things that are natural for women to do, like helping out even if he didn’t ask. Perhaps what he is viewing as disrespect is actually a woman just being a caretaker or a helpmeet, which is how we were created to be. His list was a little overbearing and seems like he doesn’t want ANY help from a woman. That to me speaks a lot of insecurities on HIS part. A man who complains about everything on that list would be dreadful to live with.
peacefulwife
January 7, 2014
gwallaby02,
This is not to say that every man finds every one of these things disrespectful. These are some things that often come across disrespectfully to men – that women are generally fairly unaware of.
It is important for us to learn to respect our men in ways that are most meaningful to them, just as it is important to us for our men to learn to love us in ways that are most meaningful to them. We are absolutely created to be their helpmeets, but we must take care to be sure that what we are doing is actually helping them, and not just helpful by our own definition. 🙂
This is a compilation of things that a number of different men have shared.
I hope it might help us to learn to understand men a bit better.
Thanks so much for the comment! 🙂
JC
January 8, 2014
If someone put his/her hand on your shoulder in a friendly gesture and you weren’t expecting it, you might react out of shock.
Similarly, many of today’s men can misinterpret well-intentioned things like that out of a culture full of women who are interested in competing with–not complimenting–men.
I can certainly sympathize, though. It’s no fun to get a harsh response out of something meant for good.