I have been thinking a lot about respect lately. My husband and I had “words” about an issue relating to respect a few nights ago. We were having dinner with our daughter, as we do every night. Dinner at our house is important. In my husband’s childhood, dinner was eaten while watching TV. The whole family sitting around the table glued to the TV. No conversations or sharing of news just mindless viewing of someone else’s made up life. We dont (usually) watch dinner while we eat. That is something special saved for the weekend. Instead we share our days and have discussions about current events. Tuesday night my husband had brought his blackberry to the table to look something up that he and our daughter were disussing and he received a work email. And he answered it. Darby, our daughter made her disapproval known as did I and he blew us off with the “Its work, about tomorrow. Gotta take care of it.” Later I tried talking to him about it and he blew me off even more angrily then before. I thought about it all the next day and told him when he got home from his business trip that if he couldnt disconnect from his job for 30 minutes while we ate dinner then i was not going to go to the trouble and time of making family dinner. To which he said OK. And that was end of the discussion. I was pretty upset. No more family dinner? The more I thought about it the less it became about family dinner and the more it became about respect. Darby and I feel less than when he inserts work into our time with him. I broached the subject again this morning. But this time I went at it from the point of view of respect. I didnt feel he respected our feelings. I even went so far as to say “We’re bummed when work interferes with our time with you. Would you prefer we not care whether you are here or not?” In the end, ironically, he had been short with me because he felt he didnt do it a lot and i wasnt giving him any credit for that. When I pointed out he actually does do it a lot and reacts angrily when we verbalize our dislike of the interference we had a very productive conversation. Our conversaton of course revolved around communicaiton. I think good communication is the key to respect. We communicated well and we could then respect our mutual positions and will continue a version of family dinner.
Sometimes when I feel disrespected I react angrily or sarcastically which inhibits good communication. Of course I am feeling angry because in reality I am questioning the validity of my own feelings of respect. I respected my own and my daughter’s feelings but went into the discussion with the intent of respecting my husband’s feelings about his job as well. Respecting yourself means standing up for yourself but not at the expense of trodding on someone else’s respect.
