7 Things I Learned from a Marriage with a Disrespectful Spouse

And the way I determined how to self-protect in the future.

My sister and I are chatting on the phone. The conversation turns and we begin to disagree. It’s not long before things escalate.

“You’re not listening to me,” says my sister.

“Yes, I am,” I insist.

“No, you’re not,” she says.

Once it gets nasty, there’s no sense in continuing our conversation.

I hung up the phone convinced I was right.

And then, by the grace of God, I have an epiphany, “Oh, my gosh,” I think to myself. “She’s right. I wasn’t listening to her.”

What was I doing?

Instead of hearing what she was attempting to say, I was busy thinking of how I could prove her wrong. I will never forget that moment. I am so thankful that I suddenly recognized I was communicating disrespectfully.

We were both young.

My sister continued to teach me things she was learning about communication.

This was before I spent more than a decade in the counseling and research of love, relationships, marriage, and divorce. It was before I transitioned from a marketing/PR consultant, freelance journalist, and former business columnist to a relationship columnist.

Since then, respect versus disrespectful communication has become an area of concentration for me. I’ve combined my insights as a marketer with my insights as a relationship expert.

That moment of inexplicable self-reflection did something remarkable.

It made me even more confident.

Let me explain.

I was already a confident individual. But when we communicate disrespectfully we do so with a need for others to think as we do. If not, it’s somehow threatening to us. This compels a need for control.

Our egos are involved.

Our egos are still immature and drive us.

However, when we communicate respectfully, we have no need to be right.

We aren’t threatened by the thoughts, concerns, or opinions of others. We don’t need them to think as we do. It’s okay that they are different. We no longer have a need to be in control.

Our egos aren’t involved.

Our egos have matured and no longer drive us.

I’ll explain it another way.

Disrespectful communicators may project confidence but it isn’t what I refer to as a graduated confidence. Respectful communicators, on the other hand, have a stronger graduated confidence.

It’s not just a projection.

It’s deep within their core.

And it’s a peaceful place to arrive at. Not only for self-care and self-improvement but because it can elevate our relationships (family, friends, and spouses) to calm rather than chaos.

I recognized my sisters and I could argue.

Few people grow up in homes with truly respectful communication.

But I didn’t understand that my husband was a disrespectful communicator. Not even after I hung up the phone that day. Because I had married a passive-aggressive individual.

And that type of disrespectfulness can be less obvious.

My husband didn’t tend to argue.

He manipulated and sabotaged me in order to stay in control and send a message when he disagreed with me. Other times, he appeared easygoing but he was anything but.

Therefore, it wasn’t necessarily easy to recognize all signs of disrespectfulness.

I remained married.

I should have left sooner.

The level of disrespect between us escalated when my husband began drinking too much. The relationship I had with my husband was entirely unhealthy because of it.

7 things I learned from a marriage with a disrespectful spouse.

1. Disrespectfulness — The same conversation over and over again.

You and your spouse continually argue over the same thing.

If my husband had a concern, a stress, a thought, an objective, or a dream it was important to me. When he had an issue we could resolve it.

It was quite the opposite for me.

It could be as simple as going to Starbucks.

“What do you need Starbucks for?” he would say. “I drink dollar coffee but no that isn’t good enough for you.”

It didn’t matter whether the topic was big or small.

“Mom,” says my son. “Why do you talk to Dad? He can’t hear you. It’s the same conversation over and over again.”

When something was important to me we couldn’t resolve it.

There was zero conflict resolution.

Or as I always say, “It is impossible to resolve conflict with disrespectful people because they communicate with their ego.”

2. Disrespectfulness — You feel the need to over-explain

You feel the need to over-explain to convince your spouse of your wants/needs.

Back to that cup of Jo.

If I wanted to stop at Starbucks, I would get stressed if we were together.

I would avoid bringing it up until we passed one or I would start over-explaining my need. “I know it’s more expensive and you don’t go there but I really like the lattes and I don’t go there every day…yada yada yada.”

You get the point.

It was having to justify myself.

Of course, I’m using this as a simple example to illustrate the severity of disrespectful individuals. They can torment your day-to-day over little things.

But it could have been a major holiday or picking me up at the hospital.

If my husband didn’t think a celebratory fuss should be made, or he was too busy to deal with my surgery…I had to over-emphasize my case.

Ironically, if the roles were reversed there would have been a very different outcome. If I thought my husband liked Starbucks I would have brought it to him daily. I would have bought him gift cards. I would have bought him a Starbucks mug.

He didn’t have to over-explain to me.

It made me happy to see him happy.

He was disrespectfully trying to talk me out of what made me happy.

Or as I always say, “Be careful of people who talk you out of being you.”

3. Disrespectfulness — You feel the need to defend yourself

If your spouse mischaracterizes you and you feel the need to defend yourself.

There’s a phenomenon about respectful versus disrespectful individuals.

Back to the caffeine, my husband was sending a message.

“You are high maintenance. You need the best of everything but I am content with very little. You are needy. You make everything a big deal regular coffee isn’t good enough for you.”

I had to defend not only the coffee.

But who I was at my core.

As I always say, “Respectful people see you for who you truly are. Disrespectful people make you feel bad about who you are.”

4. Disrespectfulness — You feel frustrated conveying your thoughts

Your spouse makes you feel frustrated when conveying your thoughts.

How could you not feel frustrated?

You are having the same conversation, you are over-talking to attempt to get your spouse’s attention, and they respond as if they don’t even know who you are.

My husband could have a bad day or be upset over something and I would empathize. I would say things like, “Oh my gosh that’s terrible or I can’t believe someone did that to you.”

I could tell him something that happened to me.

“You make such a big deal,” he would say. Or “What’s the big deal?”

He would attempt to disprove me or talk me out of how I was feeling.

Or as I always say, “Respectful people acknowledge your frustrations. Disrespectful people tell you that you’ve contributed to them.”

5. Disrespectfulness — You can’t get your spouse to listen

Your spouse doesn’t listen to you when you’re expressing concerns.

My husband had a predictable pattern.

If I needed to talk to him about something he would do one of three things. He would walk out of the room while I was still talking. He would sit in the room while staring at his phone or computer. He would shut me down by refusing to engage.

In all of those examples, he showed zero respect.

He had no desire to listen to me.

I cringe now because it made me follow him out of the room sometimes.

As I always say, “Disrespectful communicators can’t hear you because they’ve already decided you’re wrong.”

6. Disrespectfulness — Your marriage involves covert indicators

There are covert indicators of disrespectfulness in your marriage.

I can’t tell you how many times I cried over the years.

My husband sabotaged nearly every event that was important to me. It could have been my birthday, Mother’s Day, Christmas, a fundraiser I planned, a trip I wanted to take…it didn’t matter.

If he disagreed with it he was going to ruin it.

He also manipulated me.

I didn’t want to move after we graduated college.

I had been raised by a single mother and I found it hard to leave her since she was the parent who never left me. He agreed to move to be near me. A year and a half later he said he was being transferred.

Of course, I felt an obligation to him since he moved for my sake.

I felt that I had to move for his sake.

I found out years later, that he had known from the day he moved. The job he had taken was in a training territory. He knew at the end of that training that he was going to be transferred anywhere in the United States.

He said one thing and did another.

He manipulated me because he didn’t like feeling told what to do.

Even though it had been his choice to move.

If my husband disagreed with me, he was going to tell me all of the reasons I was silly or ridiculous, why I didn’t need something, etc. He was going to make sure he talked me out of it or ruined it for me.

If he couldn’t, he was going to sabotage or manipulate to ensure it.

Or as I always say, “Respectful people don’t need to be in control. Disrespectful people will criticize, sabotage, or manipulate to maintain control.”

7. Disrespectfulness — Your marriage involves overt indicators

There are overt indicators of disrespectfulness in your marriage.

In the first two decades of my marriage, I didn’t raise my voice.

We had arguments but I wouldn’t yell. My husband still was who he was and he was disrespectful but I cried or I gave up and moved on. I figured out how to maneuver around his difficult personality.

I began to yell when he started his period of outrageous drinking.

He was scaring our children and me.

I said ugly words.

I regret it.

It was not only incredibly unhealthy, it didn’t work. If we are raising our voices it’s because we believe that is somehow going to get the attention of the spouse that is disrespectfully blowing us off.

You don’t have to beg a respectful individual to care.

Respectful people don’t have a need to be in control and win.

As I always say, “If you have to ask someone to care about you, they’re already telling you they don’t.”

These are the types of things that happen in a disrespectful relationship.

If your spouse is doing them to you, or if you are doing them to your spouse, it is indicative of a lack of respect.

“There is a calm in respectful relationships and chaos in disrespectful ones.”

Respect equals resolution equals calm.

Disrespect equals no resolution equals chaos.

Respect is a ball of wax.

Respectful people tend to be authentically core confident. Their ego has fully matured. They aren’t threatened by the opinions, wants, and needs of others. They don’t feel the need to be in control. They don’t generally feel the need to prove others wrong.

Respectful people have the ability to feel your pain, celebrate your joy, and see you for who you truly are.

Likewise…

Disrespect is a ball of wax.

Disrespectful people tend to project confidence rather than be authentically core confident because their ego hasn’t grown up. It’s still immature. They are threatened by the opinions, wants, and needs of others if they disagree with them. Because of this, they feel the need to control. They generally feel the need to prove others wrong.

Disrespectful people don’t necessarily have the ability to feel your pain and celebrate your joy unless they agree with and understand it. And rather than see you for who you are, they make you feel bad about who you are.

I’ve spent years combining my instincts as a marketer and relationship columnist to more succinctly and easily convey respectful communicators versus disrespectful communicators.

Because a lack of respect destroys relationships.

And because I am most alarmed by one thing.

The damaging overarching implication that disrespectfulness implies.

Or as I always say, “Disrespectful people send one very troubling message. I love you but I don’t like who you are.”

Follow my quotes on Instagram or me on Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook