It's great that you are owning your half of the neglect/lack of respect. My STBXW has done some horrible things to me over the last 6 months, not that this absolves her of her behaviour, but I have to ask myself if these things would have happened if I had known how to be in a relationship.
This brings up an interesting point. I expect that all of us respect the other one in a new relationship. For we men, we cherish what she likes and try to honor her wishes; it comes the other way, too.
But perhaps where we fail is in maintaining that respect. We get lax. We get self-centered. We might be an outdoors person, while she likes museums. So in the giddy first couple years, we go to the museums. But maybe we fall into the MNG trap, she stops reciprocating, so at some point we stop asking and we rebel and stop going to museums. We start doing the outdoor stuff with buddies, and she does museums with girlfriends. Frostiness in the relationship sets in, both people refuse to compromise, maybe the relationship starts sliding into SSM territory, They couple muddles through for years, but then the breaking point comes with a divorce. There are a lot of ways to write this script. I am guessing that it is all too common.
Back when the ex and I were preparing for our wedding, we had routine counseling by a pastor. He gave some advice that has probably been standard advice for hundreds of years. It was:
"Don't start disliking each other for the very things that brought you together."
It made no sense back then, but now at my age it makes a ton of sense. Maybe, for example, a woman was drawn to him because she grew up in a dour household and he always made her laugh. So, twenty years later, she gets furious because he's not as serious as she wants him to be when, say, preparing for a family milestone. On the flip side -- he was attracted to her because he's the silent type, and she is gregarious, and she is so charming a conversationalist. Twenty years later, his frustration boils over because he thinks she talks too much.
I think both of these examples show respect waning over time. And it also shows how people can be so dense that they don't realize, while it takes two to tango, in their own head they are making subconscious decisions, in small ways, to sabotage the relationship each day. By denying respect for who he/she is. By not honoring his/her inborn character. And by not sacrificing, as each did early in the relationship, to keep the other one happy.
