Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend are Christian speakers who understand thoughtfully the time-honoured Christian concepts of love and respect, and choose to question them and supplement those definitions with research-based psychology.
The work the two men have done together concerns 'boundaries', those expectations we share with people we enter interpersonal relationships with, to define who we are and who they are, including our roles and responsibilities. This work is incorporated within the language of respect, because once we have set up 'rules' and behaviours we have to observe them, and this is generally considered respectful. When loose, unwritten house 'rules' in a relationship are not observed that gives cause for complaint. Of course, these conflicts arise. They shouldn't involve any form of abuse when they occur.
There is another attitudinal orientation behind the word 'respect', one that is less based around behaviour and the other partner's preferences, and is more to do with how one person chooses to honour and lift-up their mate. Synonyms of 'respect' are 'to give worth to', 'to esteem', 'to value', etcetera.
Remember we are outlining what respect is in the context of marriage because respect is what 1 Peter, verse 3 teaches wives should have for their husbands. The whole verse is: 'Wives, respect and obey your husbands in the same way. Then the husbands who do not obey the word of God will want to know God. They will want to know God because their wives live good lives, even though they say nothing about God.' (1 Peter 1:3 WE)
The idea behind this submission is that the long-suffering of Jesus spoke a thousand words through the pens of his disciples (since he did not write a letter or epistle of his own). I'm not asserting we should discard this teaching from 1 Peter. We need to be cautious to set a higher standard than the world in how Christian men treat their wives and not let abuse creep into the church. It is often said that Christian women remain in abusive situations longer and few churches directly address domestic abuse at all.
I have taken issue with this to some extent within the marriage teaching I found on Right Now Media. Insufficient time was given to the shades of respect women desire consistently in the streaming media content I watched. And in the country I live in -- the UK (Right Now Media is American) -- it was thought by common folk to be legal to beat one's wife with a stick no thicker than a husband's thumb until relatively recently. Adjudicating if this was true or false is problematic because the nature of domestic abuse is that it is hidden, secretive, and thrives on poor communication, muddy misunderstandings, and an insufficiency of light that Jesus promises the gospel will bring.
If you are interested in instigating the wife/stick/thumb adage you can read a summary of the evidence from a women's history website linked at the bottom of the page.
In the contemporary content I watched via christian streaming media, husbands were not told to respect their wives, indeed that seemed a shade too pale, perhaps not romantic enough, or perhaps lacking in emotional availability. Instead, they were to 'love' them. This is all very well, and sounds very passionate, not to mention romantic if you are in a relationship with a healthy man who wants to serve the relationship and is also himself in good emotional health.
But how can a redeemed preacher-man, (what Henry Nouwen called a wounded-healer), know that the males in his congregation will follow his example when he cannot see what goes on behind closed doors, and when a few of these men will keep wives because men like the preacher-man tell them it's what they should do: as oppose to because they have a desire to self-sacrifice and love without inflicting harm. I doubt that these men intent on abuse will change through the wordless testimony of a woman as 1 Peter recommends, since on some level they are misogynists.
In fairness, speech is unlikely to tip the balance either. If you have experienced domestic abuse, or attended a spiritually abusive church, you will be only too aware how hope-filled words can be distorted. But language does at least, perhaps, empower the woman, if she can, to leave; to make plans with friends; to seek counsel; to get the word out that love is not how it seems on the streaming media; on the Sunday morning. Or in the pages of that dusty, passionate New Testament that seems to mock her now, though she yearns for its affirmation.
Returning to the authorities I chose to consult when researching this article, Dr Henry Cloud, author of 'Unsafe People,' 'Never Go Back', and 'The Power of the Other' wrote this recently in a Facebook post:
Disrespect is without a doubt one of the biggest problems any of us face in relationships -- work, romantic, family, friends -- it's rampant. Apart from your own personal feeling of being disrespected, one way to test whether a person is being disrespectful is to disagree about a preference, when the appropriate situation arises. A respectful person will listen, negotiate, and come to some sort of mutual compromise. A disrespecter will find some way to change the no to a yes. (24th February 2016)
That is exactly it. That describes how the asymmetry in an abusive relationship can work. I will leave you to imagine the techniques. Every relationship is unique.
Let's make a collective decision in church to not 'yes' these women. Let's not 'yes' them because the man says it's love. Let's not 'yes' them because they must be wordless.
Let's not 'yes' them because they must obey. A respectful person will respect limits and attempt to accommodate them. Boundaries facilitate mutual respect.
So let's occasionally let married women say 'no.' And let's occasionally implore that single women say 'no' before it gets that far. Let's teach them that love is respect, that Jesus respects them and that He is their guiding light who will let them, who will encourage them, to say no to abuse.
We outsiders don't always know the reason for a 'no.' We won't always know the 'no' ourselves.
But let's feel in our gut that the consent that Jesus offered was not victimization. He had enormous power, he could have commanded the mountains to move. Women who consent to marriage can retain their self-respect and require that love demands a man to be safe person, to be respectful of limits, and to calmly hear complaints.
Akirah Robinson, a trained social worker who has experienced domestic abuse writes helpfully for those seeking partners who will honour them.
Her book 'Respected' is a fabulous read. In it she interviews clients who have had abusive relationships and women who are simply looking for love. One single woman confesses,
While there are certain characteristics I would like my future spouse to have (and perhaps my standards are too high), respect is one quality I am not willing to compromise. Respect is demonstrated in the way he listens to me and responds to what I have to say, how he treats me physically and emotionally, and how he views our time together. As a multicultural American, I specifically desire respect for my heritage, my family, and the unique struggles we may face as ethnic minorities. I also hope to see him show respect for himself and others. Though I like the idea of being married someday, I would rather remain single than settle for someone who was disrespectful. ('Respected - How One Word can Change More Than Your Love Life, by Akirah Robinson, Kindle edition, p 132)
I wholeheartedly agree with this interviewee. For an abusive man or woman, however, respect has a different tone. Respect can take on the language of entitlement. Entitlement and distorted demands for 'respect' used by abusive people and also by churches, where people go to find marriage partners, will be the subject of the last post in this series.
[I didn't mean to write so much about this. My fingers ran away with me because I've had huge amounts of personal data to process, as well as new information. I've started my course to help me identify safe men to date, and I'm getting good vibes from it. My (potential) dating life will be scrutinized in future like never before.]
What does respect in a relationship mean to you? Have you ever experienced disrespect, and how did it make you feel? If you want to, then let me know in the comments.
LINKS
Learn myths, adages & truisms which surrounded domestic abuse through the ages:
http://www.historyofwomen.org/wifebeatingthumb.html
Subscribe to the work of Dr Henry Cloud & watch his excellent 'post-Valentine's Day debrief' webcast recording:
https://www.facebook.com/DrHenryCloud
Buy 'Respected, How One Word Can Change More Than Your Love Life' by Akirah Robinson:
http://www.amazon.com/Respected-Word-Change-More-Than-ebook/dp/B00PD7MVBG