5 Ways to Recapture Respect for Your Husband
Did you ever view your husband as your Knight in Shining Armor? A man you once had great respect and honor for?
Maybe in the early years of your relationship you thought very highly of him? But then the hard times of life have caused you to view your man quite differently than you once did?
Perhaps now the shine and luster in that armor of his is gone and it’s been replaced by some rust and dents?
Where did your dreamy man go?
And how do you go on respecting a man you no longer respect?
I believe this is a post many wives have been waiting to read, at least that’s what my email inbox tells me! I have often shared about protecting your marriage from bitterness growing in your heart because if you don’t, you’ll run the risk of losing respect for your man. Well, this is where some of you are today. The respect for him has gone straight out the window and you don’t know how to get it back.
A wife can lose respect for her husband for a number of reasons:
He’s made poor business decisions.
He’s made unwise choices with the finances.
He’s not a good father, he’s harsh with the kids or he’s distant towards them.
He’s a lazy worker.
His character leaves a lot to be desired.
He’s dabbled into pornography or he’s had a physical or an emotional affair.
He’s rude and insensitive towards you and the last thing you feel from him is his love.
Your man has fallen down in your eyes. Quite possibly he has screwed up one too many times throughout your marriage and let’s just say respecting him is not on the top of your to-do list.
Well, today I’m going to address how to recapture the respect you once held for your man.
5 Ways to Recapture Respect for Your Husband
- Be mindful of your own sins, shortcomings, and failures. (This is imperative, wife!) When you look at life through this lens, it will be easier for you to let go of your husband’s past mistakes. But if you keep condemning him, even if it is just in your heart, then don’t expect to have a great marriage because one of the key components to having a great marriage is extending respect to your husband. Without your man receiving your respect, it makes his role of loving you, oh so difficult!
- Be forgiving and gracious towards him.
- Extend him your compassion and mercy.
- Find at least 5 things you respect about him, even if it’s as simple as him taking a shower and smelling nice! Let him know you respect XYZ about him and continue to affirm him in those areas. Verbally tell him these things and write them down too. Leave little post-it notes around the home or stick them in his lunch. Place one on the bathroom mirror or better yet, write it in lipstick. I’ve been known to do this, of course with a shade that’s not my favorite! This will help him to feel your respect and it will help you to dwell on the good in your man. Now here comes the reward….if you continually do things like this, your man will start to blossom and he’ll move closer towards you. He’ll start to feel safe around you and he’ll become more attentive towards you.
- Become the wife that God desires you to be….
A Godly wife seeks to respect her husband whether her man is worthy of respect or not because this is the command that the Lord has given us.
And let the wife see that she respects her husband. Ephesians 5:33
God doesn’t make you respect your husband, by the way. He’s given you free will to make this decision.
However let me insert a word of caution in here: God does know what is best for us, after all, He is the Creator of the Universe! He knows what you need for your soul and He knows what your husband needs from you in order for your marriage to grow stronger.
Now, I don’t know about you, friend, but I want to do the will of my Father. I want to follow and obey Christ all the days of my life. And one of the things that I signed up for when I embraced my calling as a Godly wife, was to be a submissive and respectful wife. Of course this is not an easy thing to do, but goodness, I have yet to find anything easy about living a Christ-centered life, except for maybe worshiping the Lord, and quite frankly there are times when my soul has hurt too much to do even this.
Just for fun, let me give you a simple reminder of how difficult it is to do some of the things the Lord asks of us:
Love your enemy. Nope, not easy.
Bless those who persecute you. Nope, not easy.
Do all things without grumbling and complaining. Nope, not easy.
Keep our tongues from speaking evil. Nope, not easy.
Forgive those who have hurt us. Not one ounce of this statement is easy!
I realize that there are women reading this that would like to add respecting their husbands to the above list, but let me share a little secret with you…
When you become critical and condemning of your husband, what’s essentially happening in your mind is that you’re breaking down the respect you once had for him. You hold the keys to whether you’ll continue respecting your husband or not. A woman’s mind is a funny thing. And the Enemy knows this! He uses his tricks and subtle lies to tear down your viewpoint of your man. Don’t let the Enemy rob you of your beautiful marriage!
Now here’s my challenge for you today. If all you can see is rust and dents on your man’s armor, then you become the one to make that armor shiny again! Polish your man up by your encouraging words and actions. When you do this, your heart towards him will start to grow softer and the respect you once had for him will start to develop again.
Can you think of any other ways to recapture respect for your man? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
Live a poured out life for Christ,
Jolene Engle
How about when the husband has no respect for the wife? Are you trying to tell me that it is not a mutual thing? As far as I can tell, my husband has never had any respect for me, in the almost 16 yrs we have been married. Reconcile that for me!
I came across this article while I’m attempting to do the 40 Day Love Dare. I am by no means a perfect Christian or a perfect wife, but I have challenged myself to only think about my actions during this dare. I think that is the point that Jolene is trying to make here. If we just ask God to show us what we can do better personally, then the rest will fall in place. If by some small chance it doesn’t, we will know we went about it with everything we had without being a stumbling block for our husbands.
Also, following what the Bible tells us, when it comes to marriage and husbands is great, but he needs to be a Christian to fit. If he is not, then he is not following the proper tenements. How can you say he deserves unwavering obeyance like that when he is not following Christ himself?
Beverley,
It doesn’t matter if the husband is a Christian or not. If the wife is a Christian she is commanded by God to give her husband respect. God’s Word says that. Ephesians 5:33
Hello,
Im having a similar problem my husband and i have been married nearly 3yrs and he no longer shows any interest in his family. From the start he always put his friends as a priority preferring to spend his free time with them and recently around the time i became pregnant (we have a 5 month daughter) he got into really bad steps has very ugly addictions and is never home he comes home only to bathe eat or sleep and that is occasionally most nights he is out of the house. I’ve tried confronting him in every way possible threatened to leave him and nothing he use to apologize and behave for a day or so but now when i confront him he completely avoids me acts like he didnt hear me and walks again or tells me “really your starting with that again” What am i doing wrong? Would i be so wrong to want to leave him? I really thought he was my prince charming and we would be together eternity and i still love him with all my heart and wish it was that way but i have lost all respect and trust in him due to multiple lies and emotional infidelity (inappropriate emails/messages with exes and friends) i am so lost. I grew up in a broken home ( my father abandoned us ) and i would hate for my daughter to go threw the same thing i fear this is where all of this is heading. And part of me really wants out to try to make my life away from him and find a good man who will be a good husband to me and father to my daughter. Please help i have tried reading the bible but it does not go very deep into any of this I want to do my GODS will but it is so hard.
Anahi, I have read of many people recommending this book. I hope this helps you
https://www.joelandkathy.com/OutrageouslyHappyMarriage/
God Bless xo
That is why the Bible tells us to not be unequally yolked. Being married to a Christian man is really tough. Being married to a non Christian with questionable respectability even more so.
Thank you so much for this. I needed this a lot!!
I don’t understand why you put everything on the woman. The man should step up and take responsibility owning up to his actions. Man is not Gods gift to women, women are Gods gift to man.
Hi Ashley, you are so right! The man SHOULD step up and take responsibility for his actions, but we can’t control him or change him. What we can do is change ourselves or rather allow God to change us.
In my experience it is worthy to allow Him to change me and leave my man to God to change regardless of what hubby does or doesn’t do.
Respecting the man is the beginning of him returning his love to you, like a cycle.
You hold the power in your hands to change the cycle (as does he) but why wait?
Do you think a man who has abandoned his 4 kids and wife for 2 years should gain this same respect you talk about? My husband left me 2 years ago to live with his parents 500 miles away after a bad fight. Even after, I pleaded with him to try to work things out and go to counseling with me but he refused. He used the excuse that he decided to go back to school so he could get the education he needed to find a better paying job. (he could’ve received the very same education in our own town)
I have tried to be respectful, but have failed many times as there is still much resentment for him leaving us. I work 50+ hours per week as a nurse so I can pay all the bills, as a result of him leaving, I had to file for bankruptcy and lose our house. (which was my dreamhouse) I now rent and live in a much smaller house with my 4 kids. My 16 yr old son now gets his 3 younger sisters up every morning, gets them ready for school and takes them to school (as I am already at work by 5AM.) Now that my husband is nearing completion of his schooling, he still cannot fully commit to returning home, as he says he may not find the right job with the right pay in our area. I do not feel as if he is committed in returning to us no matter what. How can I respect that? I do not feel as if he puts his family’s needs above his own, He has a huge toy collection (action figures, lego etc) which is mostly responsible for us getting into debt before he left, causing me to refinance our house several times (as he got into credit card debt over his head several times) . Yet he still continued to spend until the day he left, leaving me with a huge mortgage to pay along with ALL the bills. Does a man like that still deserve respect? These are the questions going through my head everyday.
I’m so sorry for what you have experienced, Christel! Your man should have never abandoned you and his family. It’s not biblical and he’s outside of God’s will for remaining where he’s at today. But regardless of what he does, we, as Christian wives are still commanded to respect our husbands. “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Ephesians 5:33. Now just because you are commanded to give him respect, that does not mean you’re a doormat. Your man has abandoned his family. The Bible is not too fond of that, btw! “But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers.” 1 Timothy 5:8 You need to treat your husband like an unbeliever because that’s how he’s acting. Set your boundaries so you can protect yourself and your children but still be respectful towards him.
I think you did an awesome job of portraying Gods Word. You’re right its not easy to follow Truth but its a lot easier to than to live in constant turmoil. We can all make excuses for letting our flesh run us in this area but we are all personally accountable to God for our actions and words in the end regardless of how our men act. That may sound selfish but I choose to respect my husband even in his own filth because as a Woman of God that I was created and strive to be that is what I’m called to do. It’s all in our perspective really, we can choose to look at respecting our men as a chore or we can look at it as a blessing is disguise. We can also choose to feel privileged to do what God asks or groan and complain making excuses for everything we do along the way.
I am just so tired with relationships. Best to stay single
I know I don’t belong here but everytime my wife says that she is losing respect for me it hurts my feelings. I know that in not the perfect husband at times but the timing of when it’s said make me wonder is she insecure of her decision of getting married. For example our son who lives with his mother always seems to stem an argument. There are times that I could be a better dad, but having to go through his mother could be frustrating. My wife sees that it hurts me not being able to spend time with my son. We have tried numerous times to set a schedule for him to visit even going as far to say come and live with us. So today she says that she is losing respect for me because I’m not taking more steps and not trying hard enough to e a better father. I have a lot of stress at work being in sales and I am trying to establish a business for us to have flexibility. I need help!!!!! Don’t know what to do.. Growing frustrated cause she has mentioned losing respect a few times in different occasions.
I’m sorry to hear about your situation, Andrew. Continue to pray for your wife’s heart to soften towards you.
Thank you for this article. This really makes me want to change a lot of things in my marriage.
My husband does not want to be married anymore. I have broken him and hurt him. He has not actually left the house but has shut down. How should I respond to him when we live together? I don’t want him to move out and take responsibility for my part and it is sad to see him depressed and unhappy.
Hi Jolene,
“Your” is a pronoun used in sentences like, “Your husband deserves respect.”
“You’re” is a contraction used to replace the phrase, “You are”, as in, “You’re going to get your messages across more effectively when you check your grammar.”
🙂 Godspeed!
Allison, I know the rule. Thank you. Perhaps you saw a typo somewhere? It’s quite possible since I write thousands of words on a regular basis and an extra set of eyeballs would certainly help in the ministry! 🙂
I came across this website, hoping for an easier answer. I guess i knew all tbis already, but to be honest, I’m tired of being the one doing all the work. I don’t have the energy or inclination to “shine his armour” any more. I am disappointed bc after 20+ years together, he is just not a strong Christian, and he is nothing like when we met. I guess I will settle for a man who showers and smells good. And he works. Could be worse.