What Could They Mean When She Says, “I Need Respect,” and He Says, “I Need Love”?

Back before I began sharing across the world the Love and Respect message, based on Ephesians 5:33, we surveyed seven thousand people with the following question: "During a conflict with your spouse, do you feel unloved or disrespected?"

The results showed that 83 percent of the men surveyed felt disrespected, and 72 percent of women surveyed said they felt unloved. Those are astounding results, what those in the research business would label as quite conclusive. Two and a half decades later, these findings still prove true, and the Love and Respect message finds new audiences and enlightens married couples to the “secret” that has been hidden in Ephesians 5:33 for two thousand years.

However, we would be remiss to ignore the fact that 17 percent of men said they felt unloved and 28 percent of women said they felt disrespected. These are no small numbers. Indeed, men still need love and women need respect. This is indisputable, and I have never disagreed.

However, this raises for me two important questions worthy of consideration, which I want to do here briefly.

Do We Mean The Same Thing?

First, when a wife voices her need for respect, does she mean the same thing as when her husband says that he needs respect? And, when a husband reports that he needs love, does he mean the same thing as his wife when she shares her need for love?

Because sometimes, a man and woman can say the exact same thing yet have two completely different meanings. For example, a woman can spend ten minutes looking through her closet not finding anything to wear, and say, “I don’t have anything to wear.” What she means is that she has nothing new to wear. Her husband can look through his closet and say, “I don’t have anything to wear,” but mean he has nothing clean to wear.

Similarly, when a wife says, “I need respect,” is she communicating the same thing as her husband when he says the exact same thing? And when a husband says, “I need love,” does he mean it in the same way as when his wife says those exact three words?

This is important since a husband may think that when his wife voices her need to be respect, then he needs to respect her in the way he wishes to be respected himself. Or when a wife hears her husband voice to her, “I need to feel loved,” she may assume that she needs to love him in the same ways she wishes to be loved. Could you blame either of them for thinking like this? They are two goodwilled people who want to love and respect their spouse, especially so since their spouse has voiced aloud their need to feel loved and respected. But when her attempts to love him backfire, or his attempts to respect her lead to a spin on the Crazy Cycle, they are left wondering what went wrong!

For example, during marital conflict, 85 percent of those who stonewall and withdraw, with the intention to simply drop the argument and move on without talking about it, is the husband. The husband feels the honorable and respectful thing to do is drop it and forget it and move on so things don't negatively escalate. That feels respectful to him. But when his wife voices to him, “I am not feeling respected,” he is confused. He dropped the issue and moved on! Why is she still feeling disrespected? 

Because for his wife, the most respectful thing is to move toward each other calmly and discuss the issue, try to resolve it, and seek forgiveness for anything that hurt the other's feelings. Then they can hug and move on. Both claim a need to do the respectful thing, but the process and end result differ significantly. 

For many wives, the most loving thing to her is when they are alone, talking face-to-face and heart-to-heart about what concerns both of them. If nothing much is on his heart to talk about, she looks to him to actively listen to, understand, and validate her feelings. When that happens, she feels connected and loved. Naturally, she assumes he feels equally loved when talking about his feelings and hearing of her love for him. 

But what if a husband feels most loved when he feels they are best friends, and she is friendly with him as she enters and enjoys shoulder-to-shoulder activities with him? He can be highly energized by her mere presence when she positively participates with him when he golfs, fishes, hikes, cycles, cooks, gardens, fixes things, etc. She did these things during courtship when it was just the two of them, and this ignited in him fond feelings of love and affection for her. Though they rarely talked during the activity, like when fishing, he felt his love tank filled to the brim as she sat in the boat with him. 

So if he expresses to her, “I need to feel loved,” what he might be actually saying is that he would be thrilled to death if she would go fishing with him Saturday morning. Instead, she brews up some herbal tea, sends the kids to Grandma’s, and sits across from him at the breakfast table so that he can share with her everything on his mind. Because that is how she would feel loved!

These two examples serve as an important difference between pink and blue about the very words of love and respect that both use. When a wife says, "I need respect," a husband needs to understand what that means to her. The same holds true when a husband says, "I need love." A wife needs to understand what he means. 

Is There a Deeper Level?

The second question worth considering on this idea of women still needing respect and men still needing love is: When a wife says, “I need respect,” is she still saying at a deeper level “I need love”? And when a husband says, “I need love,” could he in fact be really saying “I need respect”?

Hear me out on this, please. In fact, I pose this question based on an email I received from a wife who had an a-ha moment shortly after writing to tell me that she and her husband were reversed—she needed respect more than anything, and he needed love above all. She realized based on her upbringing, her dad expected respectful actions, which she bought into; therefore, she thought she was blue, not pink. But later she realized that the reason she had subscribed to her dad's position on respect being what life is all about was so that she could win his love and affection, which she longed for as a woman. She had not realized that she was driven by her pink longings, not her dad's blue values. 

Then, in thinking of her pink husband, both thought he did the pink thing driven by love; but upon reflection, he realized he was doing those things so as to feel respected and honored as a man. Light bulbs went off all over the place. This is what she wrote: 

So here is my theory . . . based on the values taught in one's household, a "pink" may think she regards respect higher than unconditional love (as I did) but it’s all in the definitions presented by that environment. She will do the things that look like "respectful" actions and seek the response that is called "respect" in the "blue" dictionary she was given as a child, but do all of this in the quest for unconditional love. I believe if she's truly honest with herself (willing to surface her unfamiliar and terrifying "true nature"), she will realize that her need for love and acceptance is what motivates her. Likewise, the opposite is true for men if raised in a supportive environment to "pink." He will do the "pink" thing in seeking respect from loved ones or peers (not always, but enough to confuse him on what his real intentions are). When my husband shows love in "pink" terms, he wants to be respected and even recognized for understanding what I need and meeting that need (service)—not just to get a warm, satisfied feeling (which would meet a very core need for me).

This is what we’re getting at here. Is her need for respect actually rooted in her need for love? Is his need for love rooted in his need to feel respected? While they both need love and respect, which I have said ever since the beginning, does even her need for respect come back to her root need to feel loved, and does even his need for love come back to his root need for respect?

Let's consider a thought-provoking example from the card industry. Women dominate the purchase of cards, expressing their desire to give and receive them. Yet, we rarely come across an anniversary card from a husband to a wife that says, "Baby, I really respect you!" Almost every wife longs to hear, "I love you more than ever, with all my heart, soul, and mind." 

It is also important to recognize that when wives are treated disrespectfully week after week, they begin to doubt their husband's love for them. They ask, "How can you tell me that you love me yet you treat me so disrespectfully?" On the other hand, when a man is treated disrespectfully, he doesn't doubt his wife's love. Most men will say, "No, I do not doubt her love. I know she loves me. But honestly, I feel she does not like or respect me. I feel like I can never be good enough. It shuts me down, and I lose motivation to be close to her." Most men express, "You aren't respecting me," not "You don't love me." 

Could there be something to this? I believe yes. But each of us is different; only you can truly answer for yourself. Wives, what are you really meaning when you tell your husband you feel disrespected? What are you needing to feel from him in this moment? Guys, what are you really meaning when you tell your wife that you feel unloved? How are you hoping she will respond?

As well, what does your husband mean or need from you when he says, “I need love”? What does your wife mean or need from you when she says, “I need respect”? To answer that, I’ll leave you with this:

Maybe the best way to respect your wife is to love her as God intends. And perhaps the best way to love your husband is to respect him as God intends.