Free Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs Page A

to justify the male fear of contempt in the book of Esther or anywhere else. But as women fear being unloved, men fear being disrespected (held in contempt). The yearning and need of husbands is that their wives give them honor and respect.
    CONFLICT MAKES MOST MEN FEEL DISRESPECTED
    When Decision Analysts, Inc., did a national survey on male-female relationships, I had the opportunity to contribute a question that was asked of a large representative sampling of men. The question read:
    Even the best relationships sometimes have conflicts on day-to-day issues. In the middle of a conflict with my wife/significant other, I am more likely to be feeling:
    (a) that my wife/significant other doesn’t respect me right now.
    (b) that my wife/significant other doesn’t love me right now.
    Not surprisingly, 81.5 percent chose “(a) that my wife . . . doesn’t respect me right now.” 1
    The survey substantiated what I already had discovered in my years of working with married couples. Men need to feel respected during conflict more than they need to feel loved. This does not mean men do not need love. As I already mentioned, men know deep down that their wives love them, but they are not at all that sure that their wives respect them. Perhaps that’s why they favored answer (a) over answer (b) by such a great majority. Whatever the reason, during marital conflict, it is clear that men place a higher value on feeling respected than on feeling loved. Many women cannot imagine this because they are still tuned into the love wavelength.
    Practically every woman I have met or counseled would be willing to say, “I just want somebody to love me, to make me special, to make me the most important one in his life.” No one seizes on these words and accuses women of being prima donnas or egomaniacs. Yet when a man says he needs to be respected, he is often labeled, especially in our culture, as arrogant.
    But it’s amazing what happens when a woman gives a man respect and admiration. Just go back to your days of courting. During courtship the woman may have thought that her man was motivated to ask her to marry him because of her love. After all, love is what motivated her. In fact, her love was huge; there is no question about that. But more than she ever realized, it was her unique and intimate admiration that won her man’s heart. The old saying puts it: “Every man does what he does for the admiration of one woman.” Back in courtship days, she became that woman and he bowed the knee and proposed. He felt deep feelings of love for her, but they came out of his being convinced that she respected him and admired him. She was striking a chord deep within him that literally drove his life then as it drives his life today.
    Wives virtually ask to be unloved when they “look down on their husbands”(Esther 1:17 NIRV).
    I believe that men hold respect and honor as almost equal values. My experience as a man, and with other men, tells me that in our arena we have an honor code, and if we don’t live by that honor code, we’re in big trouble. We have learned from boyhood that there are certain things you just don’t do, certain things you just don’t say. A woman will talk to a husband in the home in the way that a man would never talk to him. He can’t believe she can be so belligerent, so disrespectful.
    The husband will often look away, wanting to drop the argument and move on. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Why? Because he feels engulfed and overpowered by his wife’s dark countenance, negative emotions, and combative words. All this annoys and incites him. So he withdraws. To him, that is the honorable thing to do.
    ARE YOU A CRITICIZER OR A STONEWALLER?
    According to John Gottman’s extensive research, 85 percent of husbands eventually stonewall their wives during conflict. For a man, tension builds faster because his blood pressure and heart rate rise much higher and stay elevated much longer than his wife’s.
    During