Relationships: Minding Your Manners By Michelle E. Vasquez, LPC At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Where have all the manners gone? I’m amazed at how being polite seems to be a vanishing art. Recently, I’ve seen articles online about how Americans are less well-mannered than we used to be. Taken as a whole, if Americans are less polite, this is affecting every area of society. Where I see it doing the most damage is in relationships.

When we first meet a potential mate, we put on our “dating face.” We show our best side and we mind our manners. After all, we want to make a good impression on the person we are interested in. We want our date to think well of us.

As we get to know each other, we begin to get comfortable. Sometimes too comfortable. We begin to “let it all hang out.” We start showing our sloppy habits or even begin acting in a way that could be obnoxious. We begin to expect our chosen one to accept us as we are. If we develop a committed relationship, we may even stop minding our manners at all, then blame our partners when they call us on the carpet, saying, “You knew I was this way when you met me.”

When people choose to marry, they say they will cherish each other. They promise to love and respect each other. They agree to hold their partnership as valuable. Yet, soon after (or maybe even before they marry) they begin to treat their partners with contempt, disrespect, even with cruelty. Sometimes they even treat strangers better than the one they chose to love. Strange…

What happened here? Is this a foregone conclusion? Is that just the way it is? Not necessarily, but it can be. It’s understandable that we relax when we become comfortable with another person. It doesn’t mean we have to relax our manners. I don’t mean being stiff and formal with our chosen partner. But it’s important to keep up the good habits that we used to win our partner.

Nothing is “just the way it is” that you didn’t choose to make that way. To say, “That’s just the way I am” is the same as admitting that you refuse to accept responsibility for your behavior. When you treat your partner with contempt, you are acting contemptibly. When you disrespect your partner, you are disrespecting yourself.
Think about the way you acted when you were first getting to know the person you are with. How did you act then? What things did you do to endear yourself to that person? How did you talk to him/her? What have you stopped doing that was helpful? What can you start doing again that will bring back the respect to your relationship? Remember, you have the power to choose more helpful behaviors. When your elders told you to mind your P’s and Q’s, maybe they knew what they were talking about!

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