Do Men Really Prefer Respect to Love?

In the 20th Century:
Men prefer respect to love.

In the 21st Century:
You can’t be loved by someone who doesn’t respect you.

It all started with a question:

If you were forced to choose one of the following, which would you prefer to endure:

To be left alone and unloved in the world, or to feel inadequate and disrespected by everyone?”

Pastor Emerson Eggerichs found that 74% of the 400 men he surveyed would rather feel unloved than disrespected.

Despite the fact that this survey was small and unscientific, it took the relationship advice community by storm.

“Found: The key to a man’s heart! Give him respect, and he’ll be yours.”

But this hype overlooked a crucial point:

The question itself is deliberately misleading.

If you’re inadequate and disrespected by everyone, you’re automatically loved by no one.

Respect is the bedrock of love.

When someone loves you, it goes without saying that you’re enough for them.

If you’re not enough for someone, then what you have together isn’t love.

This isn’t a gendered matter. A relationship without respect is toxic, period.

If Eggerichs hadn’t had an agenda to push, he might have framed his question more accurately:

If you were forced to choose one of the following, which would you prefer to endure: to be left alone and unloved in the world…

Or to feel inadequate and disrespected by everyone except the person you love?”

That changes things.

If you had a life where everyone respected you but no one could ever love you, it would feel cold.

But as long as there’s one person who believes in you, who’s on your side, who thinks the world of you… you can put up with anything.

Questions to consider:

• Do I feel my partner respects me and admires who I am?
• How do we show our respect towards each other?
• What interferes with our respect towards each other?

P.S. One of the biggest respect-busters is not being polite to each other. You have to be nice to everyone else, but you can act how you want with your significant other, right? Wrong. Disrespect is one of the 5 relationship killers I discuss in this special report.