Ladies...Men need our respect!!!!

This is a subject I've been thinking about for some time. Through observations of couples in my life and the differences between men and women I've noticed something that I think perhaps as women we need to understand and grasp better in order to encourage and affirm the men that we know. This is particularly pertinant to marriage and those in relationships with the opposite sex but also I think in general we need to know these things as we interact with the guys around us. I am talking, I know, from the place of a single, unmarried lady so do bear with me and comment if you disagree! However I think from my observation of others and what I've read in the Bible it is a subject God is teaching me about too........

As women (and I'm one myself so I can say it!!) we can be controlling, critical, nagging and wanting to 'fix' the men in our lives. Too often we do these things totally unintentially and not realising the affect it has on them.

In the Bible it says many times husbands 'love your wives' but wives 'respect' your husbands (see Ephesians 5v 33). It really emphasises it this way round. Why?? I think for the very reason that respecting men is intrinsically linked to loving them and perhaps God knew that women are not very good at grasping this. In Shaunti Feldhahm's book 'For women only: what you need to know about the inner lives of men' (2004) a survey was carried out with over 1000 men. What they discovered was this...

'Men would rather feel alone and unloved than inadequate and disrespected'

She gave an example of this from a retreat she went on. The speaker divided the room in half placing men on one side and women on the other. He said,

"I'm going to ask you to choose between two things,".... "If you had to choose, would you rather feel alone and unloved in the world OR would you rather feel inadequate and disrespected by everyone?" Shaunti explains that she recalls as a woman thinking, 'What kind of choice is that? Who would ever choose to feel unloved?!' But the speaker turned to the men's side of the room and a sea of hands went up when he asked "would you rather feel alone and unloved?" The women watched in utter bemusement! (see pages 21-23 of Shaunti's book).

In the book Shaunti goes on to explain that in the survey many men found it incredibly hard answering the 'unloved verses disrespect' questions because to them they equate the two.i.e. 

'If a man feels disrespected he is going to feel unloved'

I think deep down most women do respect the men in their lives they just often convey the opposite. Even things that might seem silly to us like not allowing the man to take a lead in the directions on a journey (does it really matter if he's going to be late as long as he has your respect and trust?!!!). Or nagging them about fixing something in the house can say to them 'actually I don't trust your're good enough to do this' and therefore respect you. A common one that really hurts guys is critizising them publically...you might be thinking you're just teasing them in front of others about something silly they have done but that is the worst insult for their need for respect. For women we forget these things.....

In the book of Proverbs in the Bible it says quite a few things about a 'nagging wife'...
-Better to live on the roof than share the house with a nagging wife. (Prov 21.9)
-Better to live out in the desert than with a nagging, complaining wife. (Prov 21.19)
-A nagging wife is like water going drip-drip-drip on a rainy day. How can you keep her quiet? Have you ever tried to stop the wind or ever tried to hold a handful of oil? (Prov 27.15)

Don't you just love the last one! But it's serious stuff and I wonder if it really does cripple relationships.
For me I've always thought of Genesis 3 when it comes to this subject. In Genesis 3 it talks about the 
well known passage when Eve in v8 takes the forbidden fruit and just goes right in there and eats it. 
She doesn't consult her husband, she just bulldozes right in! And he stands back and lets her do it! Not only 
that she persuades him to join her by giving him some of the forbidden fruit....

I think this passage tells us a lot about the weaknesses of both sexes but its also related to this subject. 
As women we can be quite controlling and think 'well he might not do that thing so I'm just going to go
in there and do it myself.' However as a consequence the man don't have a chance to say 'actually
that's not a good idea, or this is what I think....' I think the weaknesses of men can be that they 
don't step up to that challenge and lead us...and instead sit back and watch. But if we as women bulldoze
into situations we are not helping them to step up to leading us, making decisions and entrusing situations
into their hands......


So lets learn to entrust things a bit more to the men in our lives so they feel respected and loved!