Question 28 - Is your man polite to you?

Abby: Key to a good relationship is a pleasant relationship. People underestimate the importance of politeness. How are you going to feel if your man is more polite to the waiter than he is to you? You should be the most important person in his life. He should treat you like you are, and that means being polite to you. If he doesn’t even say thank you when you get him a drink, how do you think he’s going to treat you down the road? He will take you for granted.

My man treats me with the same level of politeness at the kitchen table that he does if he were at a business luncheon. And I do the same to him. He thinks to refill my drink we he does his, asks if I need anything when he goes to the kitchen, holds doors for me when we go shopping, and says thank you. We don’t allow familiarity to degrade the way we treat each other in day-to-day life. It makes for a much more pleasant environment. We definitely notice when other couples aren’t polite to each other. They’re almost gruff.

Francesca: My man is not as polite to me as I would like him to be. Being polite is about gestures of kindness for me. Politeness ties into to caring about someone overall; it’s not just about please and thank you. It’s about noticing things like when I don’t feel well and being polite in offering to make me a cup of tea. It’s about letting me sleep in on the weekend versus purposefully waking me up so he doesn’t have to deal with the kids by himself, which he often does.

When I think “back to the beginning,” there was always such chaos and commotion going on between us that I didn’t even consider whether his level of politeness was acceptable to me. I just knew he was “hot” and I was going to put up with whatever he had to dish out even if it was wrong. It shouldn’t be this way and that’s what I get for being vane.

Your man should be polite to you from day one; he should always consider your feelings. The minute he stops being polite or shows you signs that he has the ability of being anything but polite, you need to question it. Whatever seems small now will be magnified 10 years later. He calls you a “jerk” today no big deal, right? 10 years from now, he could be calling you much worse names. You need to notice the small things about your man that nag at you and PAY ATTENTION TO THEM. Don’t shove your instincts and those nagging feelings under the carpet. Sure it’s hard to think long-term when you’re young or when you’re vulnerable or maybe when you’re not even looking for a relationship but you have to do it. The man you choose will affect the rest of your life, especially if you have children with him.