The Distance Between Disrespect and Self-Respect

Sometimes the people we need to distance ourselves from are the ones everyone else thinks are wonderful. They’re the pillars of the church, the respected family members, the ones who show up with casseroles and kind words for everyone else. They’re supposed to be good Christians. They’re supposed to love deeply because they’re family. And that’s what makes the pain so intense and so isolating, because when you finally admit that you need to move away from them, no one understands.

They see the public face, the performance of goodness, while you’ve been living with the private cruelty. The disrespect happens behind closed doors, in subtle digs that others don’t hear, in control that looks like concern. And when you try to protect yourself, you become the problem. You’re the one who’s ungrateful, unforgiving, breaking up the family.

The pain of needing distance from people who are supposed to love you unconditionally, and who everyone believes do, is a special kind of grief. But it’s real. And it’s valid. And sometimes, it’s necessary because pain causes us to move.

There’s a question that changed everything for me, and it’s not the one I expected.

For years, I asked myself:

• “How do I make them see my worth?”

• “How do I get them to treat me better?”

• “What am I doing wrong?”

But the question that finally changed everything was this:

• Do I see my worth?

Because once I truly saw it, once I knew it in my bones, everything shifted. I stopped explaining myself to people who were determined to misunderstand me. I stopped seeking approval from those who’d already decided I wasn’t enough. I stopped standing in the path of disrespect, waiting for it to somehow transform into love.

I Am Not Obligated

Let me tell you what I finally learned: I have no obligation to remain in proximity to people who disrespect me, whether through their words or their actions.

Not if they’re family.

Not if we share history.

Not if they’re hurting.

Not if they claim they love me.

I spent years believing otherwise. I thought love meant enduring anything. I thought being a good person meant absorbing the jabs, explaining myself endlessly, making myself smaller so others could feel bigger.

But love that requires me to diminish myself isn’t love, it’s control wearing love’s costume. And I don’t owe anyone access to me at the cost of my dignity.

The Jabs Continued Until I Moved

Here’s what I learned the hard way. Disrespectful people rarely stop on their own. They don’t wake up one day and think, “I should treat this person better.” They continued because it worked. Because I was still there, still trying, still hoping, still absorbing their jabs like I was supposed to.

The jabs continued until I moved.

Not because moving taught them a lesson, it didn’t. Not because distance made them realize what they’d lost, it didn’t.

I moved because I finally realized what I’d been losing.

My peace. My sense of self. My energy. My joy. The part of me that knew I deserved better but kept whispering quieter and quieter until I almost couldn’t hear her anymore.

When I Finally Saw My Worth

When I truly saw my worth, proximity to disrespect became physically uncomfortable. Like standing too close to a fire, I instinctively stepped back. Not with drama. Not with a manifesto. Just with the quiet certainty that said, I don’t belong here.

I stopped defending myself to people who’d already made up their minds about me. I stopped trying to prove I was “good enough” to those who benefited from me believing I wasn’t. I stopped carrying the weight of their dysfunction and calling it loyalty.

I moved.

Sometimes it was physical distance, leaving a room, a conversation, a relationship that was poisoning me. Sometimes it was emotional distance, staying present but no longer seeking their approval or absorbing their judgments. Sometimes it was both.

But I moved. And that movement saved me.

This Is Not Cruelty, I Had to Learn That

I know this felt hard. The people disrespecting me were family. I’d been taught that family means enduring anything, forgiving everything, staying no matter what.

I felt guilty. I felt like I was abandoning them. I felt like maybe if I just tried harder, explained better, loved more perfectly, they would finally see me.

But creating distance from disrespect wasn’t cruelty, it was clarity.

It was recognizing that I couldn’t have a genuine relationship with someone who refused to treat me with basic dignity. It was understanding that love without respect is just exploitation with better branding.

It was choosing myself when no one else would.

And that didn’t make me selfish. It made me whole.

The Grief Was Real

I knew this was right and I still felt the grief. I moved away from disrespect and still missed what I hoped the relationship could be. I protected myself and still loved the person I was protecting myself from.

All of that was true at once.

The sadness didn’t mean I made the wrong choice. It meant I was human. It meant I cared. It meant I tried, God, how I tried. The grief was honoring what I hoped for while accepting what was.

I cried. I second-guessed myself. I wondered if I was being too sensitive, too harsh, too unforgiving. But each time I considered going back, I remembered how it felt to be treated with contempt. And I chose myself again.

What I’m Saying Now

When I stepped away from disrespect, I wasn’t just protecting myself, though that alone was enough. I was also teaching everyone watching what healthy boundaries look like.

• I’m showing others that love doesn’t require self-abandonment.

• I’m showing myself that I’m worth protecting.

• I’m showing the people who disrespected me that their behavior has consequences, not to punish them, but because that’s how reality works.

And sometimes, though not always, distance is what creates the space for something real to grow. Some people, when they can no longer take my presence for granted, choose differently. Some don’t. But that’s not my responsibility to manage anymore. I release them to their choices, just as I’ve claimed mine.

The Real Question Changed Me

So I come back to the question that changed everything for me:

Do I see my worth?

Now, finally, I do.

And because I do, because I truly do, I don’t need permission to move away from those who don’t. I don’t need to justify it, explain it, or wait for them to understand it. I don’t need their approval to protect myself.

I simply know that respecting myself means distancing from those who cannot see my worth.

And that knowledge has set me free.

Not free from sadness. Not free from grief or longing or the ache of what might have been.

But free from the exhausting work of trying to earn dignity from people who’d decided not to give it.

Free to turn my attention to relationships where respect isn’t a battle I have to win.

Free to finally rest in the truth that I was always worthy, I just stopped asking people who couldn’t see it to confirm it for me.

Author Melissa Saulnier

BraveBeyondBreaking.com