Respect is that keystone quality of healthy relationships. Respect is accrued when we show honesty and consideration for each other (even if we disagree). Respect is built when we support each other, and avoid decisions that will harm our partner, psychologically or otherwise. Respect is built when partners in a couple can compromise and move on, rather than lock horns and bicker.
Respect is simply about not hurting each other, not lying to each other, not hiding meaningful things from each other. When we are being loyal and caring enough about each other’s feelings, preferences and needs, to integrate that soundly in our thinking and decisions. Respectful relations build intimacy and resilience, disrespectful ones produce resentment, selfishness and brittleness in the relation.
Couples therapy typically revolves around a few key concepts such as trust, safety, openness to experience, honesty, authenticity, transparency, sharing and respect. It is the work of the therapist to examine these, how they work, do not work for the couple or for any one of the two partners. When any one of these central pillars is under attack the whole relationship weakens and more likely to enter “vicious cycles” than virtuous ones.
People have an infinite different ways to respect each other in the real world, but ultimately any relationship needs a minimum of trust, care, honesty, mindfulness and respect. How exactly everyone feels respected follows some broad universal timeless principles (not being lied to, not being blamed beyond ones share, not being carelessly hurt, not being let down on promises, etc.) But at the same time, it is also a personal thing, many of our clients have vastly different ways of finding trust, of feeling respected. The significant thing though, and this is timeless and universal, is that partners in the relationship enjoy a minimum of care, respect, sharing, transparency and honesty.
Respect & Mindfulness
However it can be more challenging than it first appears to “live up” to that minimum of respect. A common source of issues, damaging empathy and sharing is seen for ex. in patients who live out behavioral “scripts”. The contrary of mindfulness really, some deeply held beliefs, never examined, that they acquired in toxic environments. That kind of “defence mechanism” can be extremely hard to at least examine for a patient. What worked as a last-line of defense coping mechanism in a highly toxic relation, will never work in a vaguely sincere and stable one.
Yet these scripts tend to be extremely “sticky” and multiple therapeutic schools we practice deal centrally with them (CBT, Gestalt, Transactional Analysis). Typically, these scripts have been integrated a very long time ago before the patient could develop any critical sense or mental resilience, therefore they are wholly “drowned” into the script. Whatever life experience we gain in our childhood, or romantic/sexual experience we gain in our early life has a disproportionate impact on our lifelong character.
In many ways mindfulness is a natural antidote for these “scripts” but it can be a bit long or light if used alone. Meditation is a valuable backdrop mental health activity for anyone. But when couples experience stress it is also important to arm them as soon as possible with better tools and words. To that end, a combination of CBT and Transactional Analysis particularly to effect positive change earlier.
Respect and empathy
Closely related to mindfulness is another important part of respect: Empathy.
It can be structurally difficult for someone, for argument’s sake, to “be” in a relationship, to provide sincere respect, if they have little natural empathy. Patients with low empathy will typically “mask” that, by adopting positive looking behaviours in public. At the party they will seduce and wow with their good cheer and apparent warmth, but in the privacy of an intimate relation will appear sullen, transactional, disconnected, exhausted mentally.
The key thing to realise is that whether they are in their Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde setting, so to speak, either charmer or sullen, in both cases they cannot show much grounded empathy and rather “act” and try to control the situation. The enormous disconnect between public/charming/masking mode and homebound/depressed/difficult mode is also extremely taxing for the other partner who wonders why they are so often on the depressed end of that people’s spectrum.
At home patients with low empathy often follow “transactional” scripts, such as doing over their share of home chores for example, to “mask” that they are effectively emotionally absent. They also typically like to keep score, their generosity if true often comes with strings attached, and in time, building resentment, they’ll have a justification at the ready for their next careless action.
Instead of being grounded in the relationship and in their lives, or instead of “feeling” empathically when their partner is hurt or needs help, they can adopt a toxic “kindness carpet-bombing” (to coin a phrase). They cover them with effort but they still cannot “feel” them and their emotions, and the transactional nature of their internal bargaining soon creates mutual resentment and disconnection in the couple.
Respect and authenticity
Another common source of challenges to the notion of respect can come from the notion of living authentically. Living authentically is a fabulous thing, one of that most of us will only partially achieve. Living authentically means many things, some of which are hard to balance but in any case in a relationship, it does not mean that anyone gets to do “whatever they want”, without consequence anyway.
If your brand of authentic living involves say, gambling at the casino with your friends, it will hurt your partner, and you will have a relational problem. If you hurt your partner and lie about it, you’ll have a bigger problem yet, further removing yourself. If you hurt your partner, lie about it, get caught and agree to change but keep repeating that behavior, you suddenly start having a huge problem.
This example above is a broad and lazy one but in real life, you can detect that same issue of imbalanced expectations, of unhealthy boundaries more subtly. Narcissists for example particularly favor that idea of “authenticity” and their “rights” to do this or do that. Confronted on the obvious damage their actions may take on a relationship they often revert to victim scripts. Magnifying as much as they can their rationale as to why they have the “right” to do this or that, attacking notions of balance that the other partner brings as controlling.
