In today’s video, I am going to talk to you about the real reasons why your wife doesn’t respect you anymore, and how to rebuild that respect naturally to make your marriage stronger.

If your wife’s lost respect for you, this is what you need to understand…she doesn’t always say it to your face but she will definitely show it through her actions.

You may have noticed the way she sighs when you speak or the way her eyes glaze over in a dismissive fashion when you try to “reason” with her, or the most obvious, the way her tone turns sharp and short with you when you’re in general communication.

This can feel like you guys are living together but she is always looking right through you, and that shift is brutal because respect is the oxygen of attraction. Once you lose respect, nothing else breathes and your wife’s feelings start to dissipate quickly.

Most men will be able to pick up on those signs I talked about, and they can feel the loss of respect happening, but they don’t know what to do about it.
 

So I am going to get into really understanding why respect fades, what it actually means underneath, and how to rebuild it from a place that feels masculine and permanent.

Let’s jump into today’s topic. 

The Invisible Dents

What needs to be understood is that respect is not something that collapses overnight.

It is generally a slow corrosion similar to that of what happens to cars left out in the rain often. You don’t see any rust on day one,  but you start to see little signs of it forming and eventually, if left untreated long enough, the corrosion accelerates and starts to eat through the frame and disintegrates it. 

This is exactly what happens in your relationship,  those “raindrops” are the small moments where you may break your word (even on small things), or apologize to avoid conflict, and just generally not leading the relationship that adds up over a long period of time.

Those dents will tell her nervous system the story that she can’t trust you to be the masculine leader in the relationship, and respect fades away if this continues over a long enough time.: Every one of those tiny dents tells her nervous system the same story:

That is why she starts to get short with you and tells you what to do without really caring what you think, because you have basically confirmed to her that you’re not going to lead the relationship, so somebody has to. 

Respect is rebuilt when you turn that around and your  presence starts to feel like structure again in the relationship.

The 5 Invisible Dents That Destroy Respect

Let’s look at five reasons that quietly destroy a woman’s respect and how to recognize them before they cost you everything.

I call these The Five Invisible Dents to Respect.

Dent #1 – Overexplaining

Every time you justify your actions to calm her down, you lower your own weight.
This is obviously when us as men are using logic to argue, and we are getting emotion in return. 

How many times in your conversations have you been misunderstood, or a point you have been trying to make has been taken completely out of context?

This was a major weakness of mine for a long time, and as men we get frustrated and then say ‘No, that’s not what I meant—just listen to me!’ a bunch of times in a row trying to drill the logic home.

She’s not hearing any of the words you are saying, she just feels a panic and unstable emotional presence.

What I had to learn, and what I want to tell you, is that strong men don’t argue their truth - you actually have to just live it.

Okay..Dent #2 – Emotional Fragility
This is where she stops feeling safe when she sees you lose your center. Every time you collapse into frustration or guilt, her body says, “I can’t rest here.”

So this is exactly what I was mentioning in dent #1, when you try to overexplain things and it does not go as you hoped; that is when you start to get frustrated, upset and lose your center trying to get her to see your side.

Respect requires containment of emotions, doesn’t mean you have to be cold, but it does require containment.

Dent #3 - this is a big one that is very unrecognized-  Compromise Without Clarity

This is where you are just constantly giving ground to keep peace, but she senses the weakness underneath.

It is a trap that A LOT of men fall into because they subscribe to the nonsensical “happy wife, happy life” saying. Now, don’t think I am not saying your wife’s happiness isn’t important. Yes, it is of course, but not at the expense of your values. 

It is very counterintuitive BECAUSE so many believe they should just be doing whatever it takes to keep their wife happy, especially over longer periods of time where complacency and compromise are just easier and more normalized to avoid fights. 

But when you do that and she knows you’re consistently giving into her and not standing up for things you believe in, it starts to weigh on her respect because she can basically walk all over you.

And deep down, that hurts trust.

Dent #4 – Consistency Drift
This is where you make grand promises that you’ll change, and you mean it — for like a week.

But then things slip back into normal and you never really come through on those promises.

The gym time slips when you said you wanted to get back to working out, the bags of chips and snickers bars start showing up again when you said you wanted to make an effort to eat healthier. 

It doesn’t even have to be those areas, but in general you start showing her a pattern that anything you committed to, there is no follow-through that is done.

This is part of the overall complacency package of a long marriage or relationship, and when she sees the inconsistency in you, it erodes belief and respect faster than any argument ever will.

And finally Dent #5 – Self-Neglect
You can’t lead anyone when you secretly resent yourself for becoming a certain way.

When you stop investing in your health, or direction, or purpose (remember, this is the whole complacency thing rearing its head again - this time not just in how you show up in your relationship but how you show up for yourself).

But when you neglect these things,  she starts to subconsciously think, “If he’s not leading himself, how can he lead us?”

Because chances are, you were not always like that. Think about when you first met and things were going really well. Clearly you were probably a different person (even if it was SLIGHTLY different - you still put in different effort. 

So she has seen you as this different person. You have to take care of yourself and take pride in yourself first. 

Each of these dents to respect essentially  tells her subconscious that you are not holding frame any more.

As your frame gets chipped away over time, so does her respect for you. 

You Must Be This

So, how do you rebuild that frame and bring the quiet authority that can lead her respect roaring back for you, and with it, attraction and a better relationship. 

Well you do it by demanding or trying to reason with her in any sense, you have to start to become a man who commands respect - and that is done through your actions for yourself and presence in the relationship. 

This is where you have to become that mountain or that immovable rock. You are that solid structure that all the stormy weather and emotion aligns around you because you stay steady.  

And to do that, you have to first regain your direction. You have to have a vision that extends beyond the relationship, because even if things feel scary and uncertain right now in it, she must see that you stand for something bigger than fixing her mood or relying on her mood for reassurance. 

I also mentioned earlier that the building of respect requires you to understand the containment of emotions. This does not mean that you are not allowed to feel emotions yourself but it means you are disciplined in how you handle emotional situations. 

Her getting angry or upset has no bearing on you standing firm on your values and the way you will be treated. It is not a competition to match her energy with frustration and anger, and then defend your position to the death because of an ego-driven path. 

You have to learn to contain her emotions to make her feel emotionally safe, and counterintuitively, this is when she will actually start to listen to your reasoning more because you’ve contained the heightened emotions of the moment (not matched it) and allowed things to settle. 

However, you cannot just listen to this and go, okay great.. No problem… and then go and do it one time, be very active and not react, and think “it’s in the bag”  she is safe now.

Repetition is real intimacy. You have to show consistency and do what you said you would do. You have to approach this because it is who you WANT to be and are becoming, not for the reason of her giving you approval.

When you actually want to make the transformation and become a leader because you are sick of the same result you are getting, that is when it makes it easier to become that person and get the results you want, but it has to be for you first. 

When you start following through consistently, this is what leads her nervous-system down the path of retraining about you.
Repetition is the real intimacy. Do what you said you would do — not for her approval, but because it’s who you are.

Every time you follow through, you are re-teaching her nervous system that your word has weight again.

This is when you start to see her respect returning with some subtle signs. She will actually listen to you and your opinions more with softer eyes and her tone starts to get softer with you.

All of that is not a coincidence, it’s because of how you decided to show up. It takes time for it to rebuild but can appear a lot faster than you think if you are able to be consistent. 

At the end of the day, you have to do it for yourself because starting to show up as a man in all those areas of your life, taking care of yourself and your purpose again will feed into your happiness as a man, and your presence in your relationship.  

Conclusion

If you’re watching this video because you’ve felt her pull away and you feel the lack of respect that she has for you, and the admiration for you she once had is gone, you can lead yourself back into her respect and regain her admiration, but you have to actually take action and not be a passenger participant anymore.

If you want to take action, I break down the path to rebuilding your relationship in my free masterclass — Click on the link in the description below to watch it for free now, and you will see the quickest and most successful path for you to rebuild connection and respect from the ground up.

This is your chance to learn how to lead her emotional world the way she’s always wanted but has never told you. Your life will change drastically if you follow this path.

If this video has helped you, please hit the like button and subscribe to the channel as well. I post videos weekly to help men save their marriages.

I’ll catch you guys in the next episode.