On a recent business trip I found myself sitting for a considerable amount of time in Hartford’s Bradley Airport. The number of places available to wait comfortably, never mind manage a bit of breakfast or a decent cup of coffee are, well, limited. So, when I found a place to take refuge for a few hours, I was determined to stay put while I waited for my seat on an over-booked flight back to Dallas.
I don’t typically pay attention to the people around me under such circumstances. “People watching” doesn’t fill a gap in my life the way it does for some — since people-interaction is so much a part of what I do day in and day out. But the couple sitting several feet from me made it impossible to miss their interaction.
Obviously married — and for much longer than anyone married that way should be — they were, as my grandfather used to put it — “going after one another tooth and nail.” Snarling at one another like two embittered, wounded animals who have energy for little more than an age old grudge, they hammered away at one another, arguing about the cost of their trip, the unexpected weather delays, and the right of the one to criticize the other.
I’ve seen people like this before and at one time I might have wondered, “Where’s the love?” But a long time ago I realized that a question of that kind — as important as it is — can obscure some facts about the complex nature of love. And one of them is this: As fundamental an emotion as love is, it has dimensions that are better captured by other words that are rarely mentioned in a situation like this. The word that occurred to me that day, is “respect.”
Now seemingly old fashioned, the word “respect” comes from the Latin and means “to look back at.” That is no doubt why, early on it was used to mean, “to notice” or “to take into account” — as the OED observes. More often than not, today it is used to characterize the attitude that is expected in the relationships between people who work together or the relationship between parents and children.
But if it is missing in an intimate relationship there is no real love to be found. You cannot love someone you do not respect. You can feel obliged to care for them, you can pity them, but you cannot love them. When two people snarl at one another incessantly, relentlessly criticize one another, track their endless grievances with the other, or simply endure one another for any reason — religious, moral, legal, or emotional, the relationship has died.
It’s worth our asking, do we “notice” or “take into account” those we say we love.
For me, personally, respect also has to do with acknowledging the other as a child of God. I can, in one sense, love someone as a child of God with or without liking their behavior or choices they make in life. Does it help, in those difficult relationships we have to try to see them as a child of God?
Unfortunately, for some people conflict is the relationship. As long as they’re fighting, they’ll stay together. It’s sad that, when one goes, the other is devastated, left with a total void in his or her life. Then, and only then, does he or she remember the good things about the other.