Love and Respect…can we get what we want?

I’m beginning to believe that it may just be as simple as this…

• women want more than anything to feel loved, cherished, admired.
• men want more than anything to feel respected, valued, admired.

And I think we both desire the connection from a single partner above all else.

I think we sometimes settle for the feelings to come from our social circles at large…and may even sometimes become satiated enough by those surroundings that we don’t crave it from a single partner. But I believe, ultimately, if we could find the culmination of those feelings in one package, we would find great peace in that.

I also think we ultimately begin by giving off what we desire most. Meaning women give off LOVE, in hopes to get LOVE returned; men give off RESPECT, in hopes to get RESPECT returned.

So in our respective groups;

– women with a group of women all loving and supporting one another emotionally, we can feel loved.

– men with a group of men all respecting and supporting one another behaviorally, they can feel valued.

I think the partnerships that ultimately work out the best do so because they have learned that they can’t only give what they want. Instead they must learn what it is their partner needs and provide that need. A woman feels more LOVE from her partner when she RESPECTS him, and a man feels more RESPECT from a woman when she feels LOVED by him.

This makes for a very circular interrelatedness…and when that circle isn’t complete, the whole works can be damaged.

I loved my husband. I showed him that love in a myriad of ways…all ways in my mind were overt and understood. I wanted to spend quality time with him. I did little random acts of love and kindness. I expressed my love in words and actions. How could it have been misconstrued?

My husband respected me. He showed his respect in a myriad of ways…all ways in his mind were overt and understood. He gave me responsibilities because he knew I could take care of things. He allowed me to make major decisions because he had faith in my abilities. He expressed his respect in words and actions. How could it have been misconstrued?

My husband needed to feel that I respected him and what he did, more than he needed to feel that I “loved him no matter what he did”. He needed to know that WHAT he did was valued by me. His job. His provision. His trust in my abilities. He wanted me to be appreciative of any and all actions/compliments, overt or otherwise.

I needed to feel that my husband loved me and my presence in his life over other things (work, family, self-interests). I needed to know that I was cherished by him. Held above others. Cared for. Captivating to him. I wanted to be appreciated for all my actions/compliments, overt or otherwise.

We both made mistakes.

Neither of us had a manual. No good examples to go by in our lives.

We didn’t know how to be a partnership.

We both ended up feeling empty.

We didn’t recognize what we needed to do to make it…and maybe we didn’t really have the desire to seek out what it was that was needed because we were both so focused on our own needs and how they weren’t being met.

Our relationship deteriorated and self destructed at our own hands.

So can we now move forward to get what we need elsewhere?

Do we get to “start over” or “try again”?

Hopefully armed with new information and better sources of support and example…

Is what I ultimately seek somewhere out there waiting for me.

I sure hope so.