Treating someone with respect means treating that person with honor and esteem – meaning, a high regard for who they are. It also means recognizing the value that someone has as an individual, no matter how different from you. It means allowing people to be who they are without judging or needing to control them.

When you meet other people who may have different wants and desires than you, how do you work with those differences? With kindness, understanding and dignity or hostility, disbelief and disdain? Ask your self, How would I like to be treated in this situation?

In addition, if you are in a relationship with someone, you are saying to the world, “This person is special to me.” Do you show that to your partner in all the ways that you treat him/her? For instance, people might complain, “Ugh, I can’t stand it when he does that. It’s so annoying.” … and they are talking about their special person. If you were someone’s special person, would you want them to speak like this about you in front of others? Does it show respect for who you are and the relationship you have together? Sometimes people forget that the person they are in a relationship with is a special person to them, and they treat that special person with harsh words and criticism. In order to maintain respect and keep a healthy relationship, consider the words you use about your special person.

A rule of thumb, if you haven’t said it to your partner, or would feel bad if your partner heard you say it to someone, maybe you might want to think twice about saying it to anyone else at all. Just sayin’;)