The Moment You Lose Respect For Someone

The moment you lose respect for someone is the moment when everything changes. The moment where you stand there looking at someone you thought you knew well or someone you once admired or someone you once trusted and you still can’t believe that they turned out to be the person they promised you they’re never going to be. You laugh at the irony that on the day you told them about your fears, you were almost certain that they will never bring them to life. You were almost certain that you will never have that problem with them. You were almost certain that they were far away from being someone who could hurt you the way others did.

The moment you lose respect for someone is the moment you blame yourself for seeing the same old patterns that once caused you pain and overlooked them. You saw the same red flags, the same inconsistency, the same excuses and you chose to look past them. You saw it coming but part of you was hoping you’d be wrong, part of you was hoping that it’s just your fears creeping in, part of you was hoping that your doubts were just in your head but part of you also knew that this felt familiar, something you’ve seen before, something you’ve been trying to avoid. Part of you knew that this person is not who they pretended to be. Part of you knew this mask very well and knew what’s behind it even better.

The moment you lose respect for someone is the moment you realize that you’ve run out of chances to give out to those who don’t know how to respect you or treat you right and it’s the moment they realize that you were right when you told them that once the respect is gone, you won’t be able to stay, you won’t be able to lower your standards, you won’t be able to look at them with the same admiration and you won’t be able to give them your heart again. It’s the moment when you realize that even if they were afraid of losing you, you’re not afraid of walking away because you can’t be with someone you don’t respect. You can’t be with someone you trusted with your bullets and they pulled the trigger on you with each one of them.

The moment you lose respect for someone is the moment you realize that sometimes respect is more important than love, that once the respect is gone, the love slowly fades away, the passion evaporates and the spark burns out. The moment you lose respect for someone is the moment you know you can’t get it back because it’s the moment you change the way you see them and once you change the way you see them, everything else changes including you because once you’ve lost respect for someone, you don’t really want them in your life. You’re not the person who’s going to tolerate disrespect just because you love someone. Not anymore.