Respect, an essential factor in achieving marital harmony

I have discovered that many couples don’t have a full understanding of how to leverage on the factor of respect to achieve success in their marriage. Thus, we have a lot of distortion in the marriage. The wife does not give respect to the husband, and vice versa. Couples need to realise that mutual respect is required for the success of the marriage.

I see a lot of women and men who accord great respect to others, yet are disrespectful to their partners in the marriage. In relating with the boss, Pastor, Imam, Doctor, Bank Manager e.t.c many men and women are so courteous in manners. But the same persons find it alien to deplore same courteous mannerism towards their spouses. A case of proximity breeds contempt, you want to call it. After all, he is my husband; or she is my wife.

So, most times, couples throw necessary caution to the wind in dealing with themselves. You need to see how some men talk to other women outside, and you will notice a complete contrast in the way same men deal with their wives. Same goes for the wives as well. We take a bow or kneel down for others; soft spoken when talking to others; praise others for good things done, But, when it comes to our spouses, we treat them the other ways in contrast to courteous mannerism. We tend to forget that it is the way you project your spouse that determines how others will treat him/her. You cannot sell your spouse cheap, and expect to buy him/her back for a fortune.

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This lack of mutual respect is one of the reasons for covetousness towards other peoples’ spouses. We think highly of others because they relate to us in courteous manner, giving us impression of having angels all around us. We then begin to compare them with our spouses,who are not as courteous as those others. Thus, we begin to lust after them. We don’t remember that all that glitter is not gold. Engaging those courteous peoples’ spouses will reveal how we all are the same in treating our spouses disrespectfully. Only a few exceptions exist in this regard.

Like a woman observed some time ago: she served guests to her home with special dishes, while anything ‘goes’ for her husband. Is that the best way to treat one’s husband? She retorted. The answer is absolutely negative  it is high time we started treating our spouses with great decorum and courteous mannerism, as opposed to what is currently the norm with a lot of married couples.

Let us treat ourselves nicely in our communications: stop shouting at your wife; stop speaking derogatively of your husband; stop serving your husband with worthless dishes; accord respect to each other as married spouse. All these will go a long way to strengthen your marriage.

That we are married should not take civility away from our relationship. Where are all the gentleman behaviours, and feminist approaches we used to manifest before and during courtship? We should realise that the concubine treatment is also good for married couples. Concubines treat themselves as if they are eggs that must be carefully handled to avoid breaking into pieces: as if they are the only ones that matter in life. All these things are going to make for the success of the marriage if adopted by married couples.

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