I Can’t Respect My Wife

“Here’s the bottom line — and it’s nothing new: We can only change ourselves. If you want your marriage to change you have to find ways to endear yourself to your wife. Instead of finding a topic of conversation that interests you and then being disappointed that she can’t follow or appreciate the thread find a topic that interests her. Become a listener. Explore her world even if it’s a very concrete non-intellectual world ” explains Dr. Shula Wittenstein

M y wife is a difficult person to respect. I come from a home where I saw tremendous respect between my parents who are very much in sync with each other; they’re both very kind intelligent interesting people which gives people plenty to connect to and respect. My wife on the other hand isn’t a particularly nice person and her tongue and rough manner are far from respectable. She’s also not very intelligent. If I could at least respect her ideas and opinions I’d be happy but she’s more on the simplistic superficial side. If I try to bring up conversations beyond the weather and what the kids did that day she goes blank and becomes disinterested. She can talk about things or people but never ideas.

I long to have a mutually respectful marriage but hard as I try to find things to respect in my wife it’s nearly impossible. Understandably I don’t feel that she respects me as a person either but it doesn’t seem to bother her. As I said she’s not particularly deep and living day after day in a home where there’s little connection but no friction suits her just fine. It doesn’t suit me at all though. I think and feel deeply and long for meaningful emotional connection.

You may advise me to think back to what brought us together to begin with and I’ll tell you that being young and naive the only guidance I got at the time was “If you don’t see problems go for it. Don’t live in a dream world.” I just assumed I was doing the right thing by not looking for problems.