Being respected

Many times I've seen posts from people on various HSP boards and venues over the years bemoaning how they are run over and taken advantage of at work, at home, with friends, that they aren't respected. They wonder why people just won't respect who they are and what they offer, why they wont respect them.

At the other end of the scale, I've observed people expecting total respect and they define that as complete obedience from everyone around them, needing full control of everyone. Abusers fall into this category and they use disobedience as being disrespectful and deserving of punishment.

Both are two sides of the same coin, that is neither has self respect.

To get true respect from others, what you really need is to truly respect yourself, not allow others to control you and not desire to control others. When you truly respect yourself, you also find you respect others as living beings and they sense it. You find you too are respected by others in return. This is my experience of it.

"When you meet my new boyfriend, you're gonna have to be super rude towards him."
"What?"
"You Heard me. You're way too nice. He won't respect you if you're nice. We need to freeze him out. Never let him Think you like him or anything he does."

Excerpt from a story a friend told me. Said boyfriend was believed to never be nice to someone who's nice towards him. They said he'd only be nice if he felt he had to work for it.

I'm Always super nice. and I thought about it - why is he nice towards me? I give him free dinner, I support him, and I've been like a mentor to him, and he gives me things back, he makes me dinner when I'm tired and he offers to help out when I'm tired. We support each others. The reason, I Think, is because he feels safe to be around me. He doesn't around his girlfriend.

And I Think that's true about most domineering, aggressive males. They don't feel safe to be vulnerable.

Perhaps he is a nice person after all, when others don't play mind games.  The relationship your friend has with her boy friend is definitely lacking in respect and honesty.  What psychological needs do they satisfy in one another in what looks like a destructive dance?

melodiccolor wrote:Perhaps he is a nice person after all, when others don't play mind games.  The relationship your friend has with her boy friend is definitely lacking in respect and honesty.  What psychological needs to they satisfy in one another in what looks like a destructive dance?

These patterns get ingrained and people eventually forget why they exist and why they even did it to begin with. Yet they keep doing it because they've gotten stuck in a friendship-power habit. I think it's how they've learnt to communicate.