Dignity: The Marriage Line You Must Never Cross

Discover why protecting your self-worth is the foundation of any healthy relationship

Dignity: The Bottom Line You Must Defend in Marriage

Marriage can be painful — that’s just reality. Who ever said marriage has to be happy? No matter how hard you try, marriage ultimately involves two people, and one person alone cannot sustain a happy marriage.

However, living without dignity in a marriage is worse than hell itself.

The Silent Suffering of Many

Far too many people live without dignity in their marriages.

Take one woman I know — her husband cheated openly, first shamelessly living with his mistress, then actually bringing the mistress home to the house he shared with his wife. When the wife couldn’t bear it anymore and spoke up, her husband slapped her right in front of the other woman. This kind of life is utterly tragic.

When someone reaches a point where they’ve lost their dignity, unless they’re strategically biding their time and enduring humiliation for a greater purpose, they’re truly wasting their life away.

Dignity is sometimes more important than life itself. A person can abandon their dignity for people and causes worth fighting for, but everyone must learn to defend their dignity to the death.

The Difference Between Sacrifice and Self-Destruction

Consider a father whose child falls seriously ill. To raise money for treatment, he resorts to begging on the streets. Life forced his hand — he abandoned his dignity for his child’s sake. Such a father deserves respect.

Now consider a man whose wife cheats, shows him no respect whatsoever, barely treats him as human — yet he remains “faithful and committed.” He might tell himself he’s sacrificing his dignity for the kids — but is this the same? Of course not.

There’s truth to the saying “pitiable people often have hateful qualities.” Those who live without dignity in marriage can make you frustrated with their refusal to stand up for themselves.

Among my counseling clients, I’ve seen such cases. I usually give them tough love, even if they hate me for it. If they can wake up, it’s worth it. The problem is, many people remain unmoved no matter how harshly you confront them.

Your Bottom Line in Marriage

When it comes to marriage, dignity is probably your ultimate bottom line. If you can’t even protect your own dignity, what else can you protect? So don’t use the kids as an excuse, and don’t talk about how hard it is to let go of your feelings.

Dignity is something you fight for yourself. If you don’t understand how to defend your dignity and insist on living humbly in marriage, don’t blame others for ignoring you, not caring about you, or disrespecting you — because not everyone is kind.

In this world, countless people have suffered emotional pain. In this world, betrayal and heartbreak happen every day. But many people, even in painful marriages, maintain their dignity throughout — sometimes even maintaining grace and nobility. These are the people who truly deserve respect and are worth learning from.

How to Reclaim Your Dignity

Having dignity isn’t as difficult as you might imagine. First, you must treat your own dignity as most important. If you don’t care about the weight of your own dignity, others certainly won’t.

Second, you must be willing to give up everything for your dignity. Compared to dignity, everything else is secondary. At the end of the day, dignity works like this — when you have dignity, you have everything; when you lose dignity, you lose everything.

So take a good look at yourself — are you living with dignity? If not, start there.

A life without dignity can never be truly happy.