Throughout the month of September, we are taking out old posts, dusting them off and bringing them to you as an RPW refresher course. This week we are starting with the idea of respect and it's importance in a relationship. That will be a lead in to discuss submission later in the week.
There are many ideas that make up RPW but respect and submission are two of the big ones. Ask questions, discuss and digest.
A common RPW post goes like this:
I’ve been with this guy for X amount of time. These are all the things that are going wrong in the relationship. He’s doing x, y and z and I want to change that. I love him very much how do I change myself so he’s better.
I commend the women who look to themselves first for the root of the problem but I cringe every time I see “I love him very much”. It’s a line that gets put into so many posts and I have a secret for you.
Love isn’t enough.
Men have two things that they require like air: respect and sex.
Don’t misunderstand, love is important and everyone wants to be loved. However, your love must be demonstrated through the lens of respect. Furthermore, respect is often necessary for us to feel attraction to a man. After all, who wants to let someone into her bed who she doesn’t respect? Who wants to care for a manchild for the rest of her life? Who here wants to lead the relationship?
Love changes over time. In the beginning, infatuation is a fire and it’s all consuming. These feelings fade as a relationship becomes comfortable. Love deepens and is a shared bond that can sustain you for life. That love requires you to think highly of the man you love. It goes beyond hormones and passion.
That love is also easily confused with habit and attachment when a relationship is on the line.
Often I see “I love him very much” along with a list of his faults. What that really means is: “I’m very comfortable in this relationship and I don’t want to start over”.
You can care deeply about someone and not respect them. If you do not respect a man the relationship isn’t sustainable. So instead of attempting to identify “love” for a man, ask yourself if you respect him. Does your gut tell you that you would follow him into a fire? Forgo your path to join him on his? Will you proudly show off your relationship to friends and family without omission? Do you think he knows where he’s going in life and will you stay by his side through thick and thin?*
Love isn’t enough. There must also be respect for the relationship to survive.
softrevolution_ 4y ago
And that was how I knew when to end it. Dead-on.
CountTheBees 4y ago
Even if a woman was very submissive, I don't think she could will herself into respecting a man without it already being there.
This should be natural. I think the missing piece for why it isn't natural is - men don't put women in their place. And women don't allow men to put them in their place. We don't accept failure or defeat or inferiority very easily, even when it is deserved. "Women can do it all backwards in heels" has seeped in to every part of society.
But women can't do it all, and they can't do it backwards, and not in heels. There are excellent biological reasons for why we can't. We can probably do better than some men but not the ones we're trying to attract.
I've heard many relationship anecdotes where the woman loudly and cruelly points out the man's mistakes but the man never retaliated with hers. I forget the post but there was one here about that, as well as many examples from my own observation. Women gleefully excoriate men for mistakes but men do not do the same back.
DelicateDevelopment 4y ago
I would like to add that there are several ways how disrespect shows in a relationship and how you can assess the feelings you have for someone
do you feel angry? Do you nag? Turn away? - - > can be a sign of lacking respect because your values don't match, or because of ones own narcisism, probably you feel superior and take a more masculine role in the relationship
do you turn sad? Desperate? Cry? - - > not neccessarily a sign of disrespect, might be a sign that you respect him if sadnes is sincere, generally I believe sadness and crying are rather signs of respect but being uncertain about his commitment, but most likely shows disrespect if it is used for manipulation instead of nagging. It might be neccessary to check if your values align or if you have the same goals, because, even with respect, different goals can make a relationship very difficult
do you feel worried about him or just generally about the situation? - - > if you are worried about him, it can be a sign of disrespect because you feel rather as if you were responsible for him and don't trust his competence to even make good decisions for himself, I think this is where co-dependency often starts
do you feel unsafe? - - > can also be a sign that you don't respect him because you don't trust his ability to lead and make good decisions for both of you
This is still incomplete. But for me it was very difficult to sort my emotions with respect to that and maybe this helps some of us to get a more clear picture of all those feelings that can be related to "love" without "respect".
SunshineSundress 4y ago
The whole “I love him but...” schtick was exactly why all my relationships pre-RPW failed miserably. I loved them with all my heart, but I didn’t have the guts to actually respect them in fear that I would take away from my own autonomy (yes, pre-RPW me was a feminist) and because I didn’t pick those men with respect in mind. It’s no surprise in hindsight why ALL those relationships ended the exact same way: the men slowly withdrew until it was clear we were done.
Leading with respect and choosing men I’m proud to follow is one of the most successful strategies that RPW taught me. It’s a big part of why my current relationship JUST WORKS so well.
girlwithasidecar 4y ago
I wish someone had explained this to me when I was younger. After we broke up (and time passed) my ex and i admitted to ourselves that if we had ever gotten married, we would have been divorced by 25.
That doesn't mean we didn't love each other but love isn't all there is.
My mom taught me that marriage isn't all sunshine and roses so I thought as long as I loved him then we could get through whatever. As it turns out, I never respected him and the writing was probably on the wall from day one
SunshineSundress 4y ago
I think reanalyzing our past failed relationships in hindsight and with a healthy emotional distance really helps us learn how to properly move forward. Unlike the guys at TRP, we’re not running game on dozens, if not hundreds of mates throughout our lives. We usually only have a handful of long-term experiences, so it’s important to REALLY examine all aspects of what happened during those times. It’s the only data we have! It’s this kind of introspection that shows us how important respect really is!
[deleted] 4y ago
[deleted]
SunshineSundress 4y ago
Agreed, but most guys on trp are there to follow strategies in the hopes of success, not to create them or to lead. I’m talking about the latter. IMO you can’t teach game that works if you haven’t done it yourself.
Same goes for around these parts - I STFU’ed when I just found RPW because I was a newbie with 0 successful relationships under my belt. I knew my input on girl game or relationships back then was worthless and unnecessary - and I didn’t start participating and giving advice until 3 years AFTER I found success from RPW.
[deleted] 4y ago
how can you love someone and not respect them? Serious question.
I'm a man, this is an alien concept to me, would like to understand your view.
I could see it for a family member. But, not for an SO
girlwithasidecar 4y ago
Well, as you say, it is possible to decouple love and respect in other types of relationships. The least controversial would be parents to children. Parents love their children but respect doesn't enter the picture. So we can accept that it's not necessary to have respect in order to have love.
Likewise, you can respect a person and not be attracted to them or love them. I think an obvious example of this would be an employer / employee relationship (the ones with the "good" boss). You can respect your superior but that doesn't mean you will develop feelings of love or even necessarily of "like".
With my ex, I didn't respect him because we were young and undeserving of respect. For a while I looked to him as someone who was just older enough to have information and experiences that I had not yet had. After we had been together for a while and I got to know the man he was and saw glimmers of the man he would be ....
He was very passive and easily moved by what his parents wanted for him. He didn't have a firm idea of who he wanted to be. He didn't have a firm idea of what he wanted us to be. If I pushed, he bent.
Love grew. We knew each other for years. Started dating in high school. Had a history. I loved him. He was my best friend and he was a constant in my life. But the man he was growing into, I didn't respect that man.
Both love and respect develop over time. You don't start by respecting someone who you do not know. Both are ultimately feelings. One can grow faster than another. One can be killed off by someone actions.
Finally, as I said in the post (I wrote the post once upon a time) people often confuse love with habit. Change is scary and not everyone believes "the grass is always greener". Sometimes there are problems in a relationship but you feel like it would be easier to hang on to the man you have rather than start from scratch. We tell ourselves that it is love but it's more habit and fear. These are often the "I love him but" ladies. They aren't unhappy but they aren't happy either. Whether these relationships are worth salvaging are on a case by case basis. However, if a woman never respected her man, then it's unlikely that it' is going to last. Women need to understand that men need to feel respect. In these situations, it's unfair to both parties to continue something that was never quite there in the first place simply out of habit and comfort.
[deleted] 4y ago
Interesting. thank you for the in depth response.
It is true that men require respect. If a woman does not have respect for her man, it won't work, leave and do both of you a favor.
Hopefully you've found a man you can respect.
girlwithasidecar 4y ago
I have. I've been married since I started posting on RPW many moons ago. He used to comment here as well but to a large degree we have both moved on to other things.