I M Perfect lady

"There will be times in your life when you have to choose between being Loved and being Respected. Always pick being respected, that love without being respected is fleeting – but that respect can grow into real, lasting love."  Unknown

It takes courage to hold on to respect and not settle for love in this moment of time, whose cost is your own respect.

If love's cost is losing respect from self or others, it will fail you.  It will not be a lasting love, for I know love and respect come together; never is love without respect.

Anyone who doesn't respect your boundaries, your goals, and your values…doesn't love you.  

I had to look up Respect.

Respect- "Admire (someone or something) deeply, as a result of their abilities, qualities, or achievements. To feel or show deferential regard for; esteem…To avoid violation of or interference with: respect the speed limit. "

I hadn't seen the word respect as an action of seeing the other person and honoring who they are.  No wonder you can't have lasting love if you don't truly see and appreciate the qualities and achievements that make up who they are.

The cold distance between love and abuse is the one simple word – RESPECT.

Abuse doesn't see the other person…in fact they are in complete violation of respecting the other person.

So, what seems like a small word not to worry about…it is big.  If you are not being respected or if you are asked to do something that is disrespectful of another, you are most likely being asked to take a stroll down a bumpy pathway into abuse in some form.

Love always has respect.

Love always sees you…love is never blind.

Love doesn't come to you without respect for you in hand.

Love respects who you are and how you feel.

Abuse never has respect for you.  Abuse doesn't see you…only what you can do for them.  It sees what you give, but not the cost to you.

Abuse lacks respect.

Abuse is a selfish need and desire…it is controlling, manipulative and saturating…drowning out your needs so loudly by theirs.  

Abuse never uses respect.

Abuse will get their needs met at all costs…blind to the pain of others.  

My father never respected me.  

My mother never respected me.

They did not see me and my life, only their own needs from me.

They did not see the cost of their needs on me. 

I didn't see the cost of pleasing them.  It cost me Me.

In pleasing them I lost the respect of me.

I lost seeing me.

I lost my own value.

When I stopped pleasing them, I began to grow respect for me.

This is the crux where Alice Miller laments.  "Honor thy mother and thy Father…." commandment. For, it means to respect them at all costs.  And usually, the child will and does, and it results in losing our own sense of self…our own respect.

In abusive homes, you can't respect both…The abusive parent and your self.

And, if respect is to see, admire etc…how is it even possible to love an abusive parent?  How is possible to respect abuse and love the parent?

I lost my respect for my parents.

I then lost any love like feelings too.

What I appreciate and admire is their shining examples of the cost of no respect in a loving relationship.  

They have shown us the cost of no respect.

My father did not respect my mother when he cheated.

My father did not respect the little girls when he forced his sexual needs upon us.

My mother did not respect him when she failed to see his negative actions.

My mother did not respect herself enough to leave that relationship.

My mother did not respect the children enough to take them away from him.

For one small word, respect makes all the difference in the world.

Respect will grow into a real and lasting love.

No respect…withers love.