Respect

Respect is a clear feature of our outer, Personal Boundary. Through seeing where we end and others begin, where our responsibility and ownership of resources ends and that of others begins, and where our control ends especially, and that of others begins forms the essence of respect. We have to respect the impossibility of controlling what belongs to others.

This is a clear feature of boundaries that are solid and not riddled with holes, yet which does not place us in a lonely world, but one which gives us doors to open or close to others, depending on how constructive or destructive, how win/win or win/lose they are to us.

When you are with a person you have sometimes felt is inconsiderate of you, if it is in moderation and occasional, you may find it in yourself to be forgiving. You may see right there how well two mature partners with mature ego defenses may get along in life. We are not robots who operate mechanically, or who have only one chance ot get things right with each interaction. When we are mature, we see how boundary doors are meant to open and close dynamically, helping each other reach a constructive steady state by blocking normal human, bad behavior, and encouraging constructive behavior with openness, literally, and acceptance. We have moderation in our behavior, then forgiveness, acceptance, and patience, all virtues which may help reestablish respect. All virtues, and all mature defense mechanisms.

Respect can be a specific well-regard for the qualities of a person or specific conduct in them. This is the psychological source of the age-old self-help mantra, “What I do is not who I am.” People with this ability can see the frailty of humanness, that we make mistakes and correct course, like Jean Valjean. That what we do need not represent who we are for life. People with this maturity can understand not to “judge a book by its cover,” and not to “judge by words, but by actions.” Respect can be for specific instances of behavior, or for the sum total of a relationship “track record.” However, beware of the quality and length of that track record, as our partner may reach a breaking point if it is too negative.

Relationships and commitments that are built without respect are seldom sustainable. The lack of respect, and the poor boundaries, with holes in them, is at the very heart of most conflict in relationships. When there is this lack of respect in a partner’s constitution, something very insidious happens in the codependence that can emerge: nearly every investment we make slips out the bottom of the relationship boundary, and is wasted. We may awake one day to see we have wasted our lives on such a person, and so the good boundaries of respect must be checked for, early on.