Is Having a Loving Marriage Without Respecting Your Husband Possible?

By Robyn Lee

Most women believe, “Once my husband starts showing up the right way, then I’ll respect him.”

But the truth is this: most men can’t show up in that way until they feel respected. 

And I’m going to break this down in a way that finally makes sense.

It took me years to understand this in my own marriage.

I didn’t truly respect my husband until more than ten years into our marriage. I loved him. I liked him. But respect? That was harder to give.

I remember sitting across from my therapist on Zoom, confused about why every conversation seemed to circle back to one question: “Do you respect your husband?”

I couldn’t understand why he kept bringing it up or how it connected to the problems we were having.

My answers were always partial. 

Sure, I respected some things. He’s the best date when we go out. I love that he only has eyes for me. I respect that. 

But I didn’t respect him sitting around playing chess all day while I was doing everything else to keep our home running.

No matter how much I tried to deflect, my therapist kept pushing me to answer that question honestly.

Eventually, I said the part that was easy for my heart to feel but hard to say out loud:

“Nope. I don’t respect him.”

I didn’t want respect to be the answer. I wanted there to be some other path, some other way to feel close to my husband without offering something I didn’t feel. 

I told myself our marriage was good enough without it, that respect wasn’t really the issue. But I was wrong.

What I didn’t understand then is the same thing most women don’t see when they’re in this place. That the frustration you’re feeling, the distance in your marriage, and the way your husband keeps showing up (or not showing up) all traces back to one deeper dynamic happening underneath the surface.

In this post, I’m going to uncover what that dynamic actually is and why it affects everything else.

You’ll learn:

• why your husband is showing behaviors you can’t respect

• the one shift that helps you genuinely feel more respect for him (without pretending)

• and the behaviors you can expect to see when this shift starts working

This message is for women whose husbands have seemingly checked out. They’ve stopped trying. They don’t help with the housework. They don’t show appreciation. They miss your attempts for connection. They get partnership wrong in a way that feels frustrating and lonely, not dangerous.

How Do You Know If You Respect Your Husband?

Before we can talk about respect, we need a shared understanding of what it actually is.

So let’s start there: what does it really mean to respect your husband?

I like Merriam-Webster’s definition because it’s clear, straightforward, and free of the emotional weight we tend to attach to the word.

It says that respect is a feeling or understanding that someone or something is important, serious, etc., and deserves appropriate treatment or regard.

So ask yourself: Does your husband deserve appropriate treatment or regard? When you’re making decisions, do you consider his thoughts, or do they feel irrelevant or unwanted?

I knew I didn’t respect my husband because I made plenty of decisions without even thinking about what he would want. I genuinely felt like I was the only one capable of making good choices for our family. And if he had a say, I assumed his decisions would set us back.

I didn’t have the time or energy to explain why my way made the most sense — so I just stopped including him altogether.

Dr. Leman explains that respect is your belief that your husband is a capable, worthy human being, and that he matters in your world.

My husband had become more of an accessory to me than a partner. It was nice to have someone who could occasionally help with the kids, provide safe sex, and be my automatic date for the events on my calendar — but his voice wasn’t appreciated or even desired.

He was important only to the extent that he could show up for the tasks and moments I needed him for.

But he wasn’t important in my world.

At one point, my therapist asked me a simple question: “Does your husband make your life better in any way?”

And without hesitation, my answer was, “No.”

My lack of respect for my husband eventually turned into disrespect. It showed up in the snappy, mean things I said to him.

And even though I had once been the center of his world, I was slowly bringing out the worst in him, which only gave me more reasons to lose respect for him. And so the downward spiral continued.

Let’s look at why this happened.

The Reason You Don’t Respect Your Husband Anymore

It’s not like you woke up one morning and decided you weren’t going to respect your husband.

It usually happens slowly. His actions stack up over time, the disappointments, the frustrations, the moments where he didn’t show up, until respect starts to fade and resentment takes its place.

I didn’t fully understand why this was happening in my own marriage until I dove into the work of Patricia Love, Ed.D., and Steven Stosny, Ph.D.

They explain that men and women carry different core fears in relationships, and when those fears get triggered, real connection becomes almost impossible.

These fears come from:

• culture — the different ways boys and girls are socialized, and

• physiology — the innate ways our bodies react to stress and emotional threat.

Men fear shame. They fear failure. So when a wife, even unintentionally, makes her husband feel like he’s failing, it brings out the worst in him. She may not say the words out loud, but he still feels it.

And when a man feels like a failure, he withdraws to protect himself from feeling even more shame. Unfortunately, that withdrawal triggers a woman’s biggest fear.

Women fear being alone. So when a husband makes his wife feel alone in her hopes, her needs, or her dreams, whether it’s the hope of a faithful marriage or simply having support with the household and family, it creates the painful feeling of being a “single married woman.”

You may even start questioning why you’re in the marriage at all. When it feels like you’re doing everything alone and there’s no real connection, the marriage starts to feel more like roommates than partners.

The One Shift Required to Make Respecting Your Husband Effortless

Let’s try a small experiment. It won’t take long, but it will reveal lots. 

How do you feel about your husband right now?

Take a moment, be really honest with yourself. What comes up for you?

• Do you feel angry with him?

• Do you feel frustrated?

• Do you feel a loss of control because you are afraid of what he will do or not do next?

• Do you feel constantly annoyed by him, like he is always one step away from getting it wrong?

Now ask yourself: What is making you feel this way?

What thoughts are running through your mind?

Every feeling starts with a thought, even if it’s a quick, fleeting thought. Take a moment to identify it.

It might sound like:

“He’s lazy.”

“He’s selfish.”

“He’s dumb.”

“He doesn’t care about me.”

“He doesn’t think things through.”

“He can’t get simple things right.”

Whatever thoughts came up for you, those thoughts are the reason you don’t respect your husband.

But given different thoughts about him, more generous, more grounded thoughts, respect becomes far easier to access. Here’s how these thoughts may be changed slowly:

“He’s lazy.”

→ “He shuts down when he feels overwhelmed or unsure, but he steps up when he feels supported.”

“He’s selfish.”

→ “He doesn’t always see what I see, but he wants to get it right when he understands what matters to me.”

“He’s dumb.”

→ “He thinks differently than I do. Different doesn’t mean wrong, his perspective adds balance to mine.”

“He doesn’t care about me.”

→ “He cares deeply, but he doesn’t always know how to show it in the ways I expect.”

“He doesn’t think things through.”

→ “He moves quickly and trusts his instincts. I can guide us through the details when needed. We complement each other.”

“He can’t get simple things right.”

→ “He gets thrown off when he feels watched or judged. When he feels trusted, he’s capable of so much more.”

These kinds of shifts don’t happen overnight. And I want to be honest, it was incredibly hard for me to change the way I thought about my husband because my resentment was so deep and my beliefs felt so ingrained.

But my first micro shift didn’t come from suddenly thinking glowing thoughts about him. It came from something much simpler: I stopped having conversations with my husband when I was in a bad mood. That one change softened the dynamic between us just enough for me to see him more clearly and less through the lens of frustration.

The mistake most wives make, and the mistake I made for years, is believing that the things that felt obvious to me should also be obvious to him. Many times men don’t think the same way women do, in fact, they are wired to think differently. Different doesn’t equate to wrong, it’s just different.

It’s easier to do this when you’re traveling or experiencing different cultures, we automatically understand that some things will be done completely differently and are even excited about it. We don’t label the different traditions as wrong, just different.

It’s a simple shift, but it may not be easy after years of resentment. But this is the one shift required in order to lay the groundwork for respect. You have to see your husband differently through eyes of compassion and give him the benefit of the doubt.

How Your Husband May Act When He Doesn’t Feel Respected

When a man doesn’t feel respected, he pulls back. Dr. Leman explains that a husband who feels “dissed” by his wife thinks, “Why even try? She’ll tell me I’m doing it wrong anyway.” So he checks out — sits on the couch, avoids helping, and retreats from the very moments where you need partnership. 

Not because he doesn’t care, but because trying feels like walking into failure.

Patricia Love and Steven Stosny add that when a man feels shame or inadequacy, which disrespect triggers instantly, he copes through distraction, overworking, hobbies, screens, emotional shutdown, anger, or even aggression. 

All of these are ways to avoid feeling like a failure. If any of these patterns feel familiar, it may be a sign that your husband doesn’t feel respected, and that disrespect is bringing out the very behavior you dislike most.

Here’s What Happens When You Respect Your Husband

When a man feels respected, something shifts in him. He relaxes. He opens. He stops bracing for criticism and starts leaning into the relationship again. Suddenly, he’s seeking you out — asking what you think, valuing your perspective, wanting to share decisions with you because he feels safe in your presence instead of being judged by it.

You’ll see it in the small things first. He’ll take initiative without being asked. He’ll step in with the kids so you can breathe. He’ll look for ways to make your life easier because it genuinely matters to him again. Respect brings out the part of him that wants to contribute, to help, to protect, to show up.

That’s the man respect can bring forward.