Respect

This is a tough one.

I don't have a lot of experience with other people's relationships. I can only really talk about mine.

Fundamentally, the relationship and then marriage that Hillary and I had was founded on a number of core values. The foremost in importance was respect.

Under everything else was a deep respect that Hillary and I had for each other. We had disagreements, differing opinions and very rarely we had arguments. We both would assume that despite technical differences, the other person ultimately had the good of the family as their driving motivation.

We learned what sorts of things would drive the other person crazy and didn't do those things.

In the friendly competition that underlined so much of our relationship, trash talk was almost unheard of. The post competition comment would be, "You got me that time." Not gloating from the victor.

It was years into our relationship that I consciously became aware that respect was what was making our marriage work so well. I knew instinctively that despite our differences, something was clicking.

We explicitly discussed that respect a few times in the last couple of years. Usually it came up in the context of wondering how we'd teach or show the kids what a healthy adult relationship looked like.

This was and remains one of my largest fears about where I am now. The plan was to show the kids through how we interacted what that respect between equals looked and sounded like.

I can respect the kids and show them that, but there is an inherent power imbalance there that is just different.

I don't know.