Ladies-would you rather have love or respect in your relationship?

[vishna]

Disclaimer: obviously both are vital but...

I'm asking this after a short chat with someone on here and he insinuated women crave love more and men crave respect.

For me, I place respect much higher than love because if my partner doesn't respect me-where does that leave us? He can love me up and down but if he doesn't acknowledge my autonomy, we have a much bigger problem than 'the thrill is gone'

Anyways, curious to see what other women think.

Best :)

Love is more important than respect

Respect is more important than love

I'm a guy

Updates

+1 y

I see a lot of people saying roughly "You can't have love without respect." I beg to differ. Your parents can not respect you (boss you around, think you're always wrong) but love you with every bone in their body.
I think a lot of bad relationships have this type of set up.

Updates

+1 y

100 poll answers-thanks guys and gals.

[lumos]

I honestly place both at an equally important level. If there's no love, why are we even in a relationship? If there's no respect, why claim to love me? You should always respect the person you love. That doesn't mean blindly agreeing on everything and always avoiding conflict, but I deserve to be treated like a human being with rights and a voice. If I'm treated like shit, then clearly there's no love. You can't claim that love exists if you don't respect a person for who they are. Even with the example of the parents you wrote in your update, I disagree. Bossing someone around (as a parent) isn't always necessarily disrespect. Neither is thinking someone is always wrong disrespect, more so is it selfishness and unwillingness to see something from another perspective.
If someone goes out of their way to be abusive and hurtful in a relationship, and we're not just talking about normal arguments and disagreements, there simply cannot be love. You can't love a person if you constantly hurt them and don't even care about it.
So that's why both are equally important. I can't be in a relationship that doesn't value both equally.

[LaFemmeFatale]

Respect is way more crucial for me to engage in a relationship.
Many people can love me, but respect is something more deep and vital.
Everyone wants to be loved and respected but if I had to choose.. I would choose to be respected. That's something that makes me feel as a person. For example, I can love ducklings and puppies and I can count many things that I love but... Love is something, we, people, are generous to share but not everyone who are loved are appreciated.
If my boyfriend loved me but didn't respect... That would be just end of our relationship.
And one more thing about, why I prefer to be respected than to be loved, love without respect may fade away after years of living together but - love with respect - that's what make us want to connect and stay together. I mean that sometimes love just fades but respect always (almost) stays.

[existing_not_living]

I would need respect first and foremost. I have been disrespected so much and it as made me feel that the person does not really love me at all. I ended a friendship for brief (sorta - it was a 6 month NO talking period) time because I felt that he didn't respect me and I was sick of it. I knew he loved me, but I felt no respect from him and in turn, that made me doubt his love. I made it clear to him that in order for us to be friends again, he needed to respect me and if he couldn't then there wasn't a point to us talking anymore.

I agree with others saying that love and respect go hand in hand, but in order for a relationship to be able to grow to love, it needs to have a foundation of respect.

[Azara]

I agree!

[existing_not_living]

Thanks for MH! :)

[Azara]

Im with you R E S P E C T. on the other hand of after having resect he never falls in love, i doubt id stay. but there is no beginning middle or end to a relationship without respect. respect is the foundation on which love can flourish. thats the difference, reset is necessary just to open the door to a relationship. love is necessary to stay. but im not walking in without respect. im not dating without respect. im not going to talk to him without respect. doesn't matter how cite or charming r flattering... respect. its the most important thing. without it everything else is meaningless. in my opinion.

[vishna]

exactly!

[Azara]

to add, im seeing a lot of people confusing courtesy with respect. you can treat someone with courtesy. still does not mean you 'respect' them.

[OrdinaryGentleman]

*puts on blonde aryan wig*
*becomes jailbait* *high pitch cough*
Its kind of like choosing between two evils... much like this election:P
except they are not evils but two goods that a relationship cannot live without.
I believe that respect is more important, though a relationship can last longer if it depends upon love due to "childish" fantasy but a mature relationship requires respect from both parties.
I was reading this the other day mind you it is written by a woman and it can apply really to both parties.
www.imom.com/.../#.V30BpJMrKqA

[Anonymous]

I think you're going to get confused answers here.

I think that you might also get different answers by age.

I think that the way that men and women love one another is not the same. I think that young people tend to assume it is, so they look to be loved in the way they themselves love, and are surprised if they don't find it.

Men, at least, seem to as they mature become comfortable and enjoy the way women -actually- love.

Women... I'm not sure, some do some don't from what I see, but I haven't made a big study of it.

[bbch25]

Could you elaborate more on the different ways we love?
I find your answer interesting.

[Opinion Owner]

@bbch25 women's love for men is more an admiring kind of love. Women are more likely to be attracted to high status guys or successful guys... Or guys who are doing charity work or something. Their actions matter. They are more likely to like older guys who have done more interesting things. They want him to seem strong (not necessarily physically). Many women say they want equality but most seem to find it easy to fall for guys they look up to.

Mens love is more of a 'treasuring' sort. They see her as sweet and lovely and want to protect her and enjoy her. Her accomplishments don't emotionally impact him. He's proud for her (and to some extent maybe of her) but he loves her because she's pretty and nice and that's it.

There's almost a tiny and totally not incesty dose of how kids love parents in his women love and a little more dose of how parents love kids in how men do.

[Opinion Owner]

So what happens when they're young? They expect to be loved as they love. I actually here young women wondering more about respect then young men. To them respect is fundamental to love. They assume guys will care what they do. What hobbies they have. They WANT guys to care about those things, otherwise their affection seems fake and must just be about sex.

Young men are the opposite. They want a girl simply who looks okay and is pleasant. They can't understand why women don't feel the same. If they are confident they are nice, and girls don't like them, the problem must be that they're ugly. Any suggestion that women care about what they do, to them, seems fake. Like she's a social climber or gold digger or using him for status. The idea that girls feelings would genuinely be impacted by these things is foreign to them. To them, the love of women, contingent on more than him simply being, seems fake.

[Azara]

yeah, how you want to be loved doesn't necessarily match how you are loved. i might say i dont accept love as love without respect bc its important to me, but that does not mean mr x who does not respect me but thinks he loves me, doesn't love me. we can say what love means to us, or how we want to receive it, or if we decide to reject it, but i dont think we can tell other people what they feel.

[Mustachekitteh]

I would think those 2 would go hand in hand because you can't love someone if you don't respect them.

[vishna]

Right! It's such a weird thing to even think about and choose when you Really think about it.

[April10]

You beat me to it. Completely agree

[Telekinetic-Potato]

A relationship doesn't work without both. I would rather have someone's respect because a relationship with only love and no respect will just be painful and sad

[WoOolfy]

I say love but for me love is respect. No one will make me believe He loves me if He doesn't show me respect. Loving someone is caring about them and respecting them in their decisions and in who they are. So I'll go with love and get 2 in 1 ^^

[bente2]

You can't have love without respect but you can have respect without love. I chose love, just because I think if someone loves you they'll learn to respect you. If someone really loves you they'll treat you like a godess.

[phil2]

Love because it means he will tell me stuff that I don't want to hear because it's for my well being.

[SnatchFinderGeneral]

I like it.

It's a shame the vast majority of women are completely ignorant of this. Therefore, why should I bother at all.

[Azara]

if a person respects you they'd be hones with you bc they'd test you could handle it. people will use loving someone as an use to treat them with kid gloves.

[Tarnygosh]

If you love me, don't you respect me? I don't get it

[_savxnnah_]

If you love me, then you respect me. There's no love you and not respect you.
Respect me, then great!

[menina]

I think respect is more important. I can't love someone who doesn't respect me, it makes the relationship toxic.

[BarbaraP]

Both are equally important, of course. However, I think you can have respect without love, but you can't have love without respect

[Fearless_banana]

Lmao @ the picture in D.. it's that fat guy who eats a bunch of food on tv

[vishna]

the one and only fat guy

[samhradh_leannan]

I don't think a relationship can work without both.

[Luminifera]

respect. i could never love someone who doesn't respect me, respect comes first

[EllieLexis513]

I don't understand how you can possibly have one without the other.

[LittleMissCuriousity]

I think in a romantic relationship, you really need both.

[Waffles731]

I honestly do not think there is a right answer as both are equally necessary

[Anonymous]

I choose love, because I believe that real love automatically comes with respect. In other words, you can't have love without respect, but you CAN have respect without love... and I'm selfish; I want both.

[lime_rampljuset]

You can respect without love, but you cannot love without respect.

[Anonymous]

I prefer being love. I've never been respected but always loved so I don't think respect is really important

[hannaxx]

I would rather have both but I can't be with a guy who doesn't respect me.

[archiz]

Love
He could do whatever he wants with me

[Oram52]

Oh archize he can do "whatever" he wants with me, do tell ;)

[archiz]

@Oram52 ain t saying 😋