The LA Times recently had an article that mentioned a Code of Mutual Respect at Brooklyn's Maimonides Medical Center in New York. Classes were designed to teach medical personal how to behave in a way that respects patients and staff. You may ask yourself, “why do we need classes on how to treat others respectfully?” Why is this a hard thing to do? Why do we need to be taught how to do it?

A common definition for respect means esteem for or a sense of worth or excellence of a person, personal quality or ability, ie, to hold esteem or honor or to show regard or consideration for. Hmmm, now do we all know how to do that? In your marriage, have you figured out how to respect your partner?

It is hard because we sometimes think we’ve got our bases covered if we treat others as we’d like them to be treated. That works – sometimes – if we’ve been raised with similar beliefs, have similar cultural backgrounds, or think in amazingly similar patterns. How many relationships do you know like that? I cannot think of many.

I often ask couples to tell me how they would know if they were being respected and what it would look like. It sounds like an easy question on the surface. Answers will start out with phrases like, “if he cares about me”, “if she values me”, etc. The problem is that we assume the other person just knows how we experience caring or being valued. With enough exploration, one starts to understand how they know they are being respected. “If he cares about me” suddenly means, “if he looks at me and says how are you when he comes home”, or valuing means “when she listens to what I have to say about a situation we are struggling with”.

Try this with your partner. Ask your partner, “If I were showing you respect, what would it look like”? “What would I be doing or saying”? Take turns asking each other. I’m willing to bet you will hear things that you did not know. You will start to learn what makes your partner feel bigger than life itself. And you may realize just how simple it is to accomplish!