Love & Respect Book

A most significant point of this book is this: If what we think is true, kind, necessary, and clear, we need to have the courage to hit send. This isn’t about refraining from speaking; this is about speaking.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

When you look to God and His Word as your ultimate source of significance and security, you don’t demand that your spouse take that role in your life. And as you draw strength from the Lord individually, He draws you closer together as a couple.

Respect for the husband is just as important as love for the wife.

Feeling unloved, a wife gets defensive and acts offensively without respect. Feeling disrespected, a husband gets defensive and acts offensively without love.

When others do not respond to our communication, we need to look first at our communication style. Is the other person incapable of hearing what we have to say? Or are we abrupt, brusque, and curt?

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

God rewards your obedience to love and respect, even if your spouse does not respond!

You have to become proactive, rather than just trying to stop the reactive.

As you pray together, you will truly learn to love and respect together.

As strong and powerful as marriage bonds can become, our deepest dependency must be on the Lord, not another human being.

When a wife asks, “Do you love me?” She is not trying to put her husband on the spot. She is simply looking for reassurance.

You must “ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves.”

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean the other person is offensive.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

A woman needs love like she needs air to breathe. A man needs respect like he needs air to breathe.

We can all have moments of anger, but this does not mean we have to lose control and sin.

Ladies, be careful. “A nagging wife goes on and on like the drip, drip, drip of the rain” (Proverbs 19:13).

Men are solution oriented, they love to solve problems. They want to be helpful.

Trust God when the “why’s” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

Do you bow to the influence of Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

Always try to look at your spouse the way Jesus does.

Clearly, in the marriage, in the family and in the household, when you speak words of blessing, you are speaking to the Lord, and for this you will be rewarded.

The Love and Respect message is not about a husband earning his wife’s respect by being more loving any more than it is about a wife earning her husband’s love by being more respectful. Always love or respect is given unconditionally according to God’s commands.

Marital researchers agree that a huge percentage of communication problems between husband and wife are due not to what is said but to how it is said – the attitude and tone of voice.

God is not trying to trick you or mess with you. Trust that He wants to reveal Himself to you just as much as He wants to reveal Himself to the world.

Always remember that Pink and Blue have different wiring, different preferences. Assume your spouse has goodwill toward you, no matter what. Both of you can be right, while being different.

When Jesus said “turn the other cheek,” He wasn’t saying to be passive wimps. He was teaching that physically people can control you but if you turn and give the other cheek, suddenly you’re in control and you’re making the choices.

The moment we cry to Him for help, He is already pleased. He gives us strength to love our children.

Your marriage is really a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for your Lord.

There is a plan to parent God’s way, even when our children may seek to go their own way at time. The secret is to follow this plan regardless. When you do, I believe you succeed in His eyes.

Can you begin to trust that God feels love for you even when you don’t feel that love?

You have two ears and one mouth; use them proportionately.

Your wife will feel esteemed when you speak highly of her in front of others.

When parents genuinely trust and follow the Lord and His ways, their faith spills over onto the children.

Clarifying is what you do before you step on your mate’s air hose and deflate his or her spirit. For example, you are having a typical conversation, but you can tell there is a misunderstanding. One of you isn’t being clear or isn’t hearing correctly. Then and there you clarify the misunderstanding before your spouse’s spirit deflates. You lovingly or respectfully clarify matters so that your spouse will not feel unloved or disrespected. The reason you take pains to clarify a seemingly small matter is to prevent the situation from becoming a love and respect issue that needs decoding. Clarifying is what you do to stay off the Crazy Cycle and keep positive, energetic feelings flowing between the two of you, to keep yourselves on the Energizing Cycle.

I had often asked God to compensate for my mistakes, but in return had I thought He would give me perfect children?

Focus on the positive in the midst of the negative, and the Energizing Cycle will keep right on humming.

Marriage is a tool and a test to allow God’s will to be revealed in our lives.

The Crazy Cycle is, indeed, “the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25).

It is so easy to draw wrong conclusions about a spouse’s character and motives due to an occasional flare-up or silly comment.

Unconditional respect is as powerful to him as unconditional love is to her.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

We all need to wrestle with the spiritual truth that God is good. If you don’t believe God is good, you won’t trust His word. If you don’t trust His word, you will find excuses to ignore His commands.

“Respect is a man’s deepest value. I have had numerous men tell me, ‘I would rather live with a wife who respected me but did not love me than live with a wife who loved me but did not respect me.’ These men are not saying that they are indifferent to love. They know they need love, but they need to feel respected even more than they need to feel loved.“

With a better understanding of God’s promises, you will be on your way to a renewed mind and a changed life.

It’s hard to realize that we would never act around our business associates the way we act around our spouse.

Being a person who communicates what is true frequently demands tact, and at times it can feel like sidestepping land mines. It takes work to be both truthful and tactful.

Stay the course regardless of the child’s respect and obedience. This is the Family Rewarded Cycle: a parents love unto Christ regardless of the child.

Knowing my spouse will not be able to love or respect me perfectly, I commit to having a forgiving spirit so that I may never speak hatefully or contemptuously.

Although the Crazy Cycle is not what God intends for any marriage, all couples get on it at times from one degree to another.

Responding to offensive words or actions with your own offensive words and actions is damaging and unproductive.

When you come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

If husbands and wives are to understand the Love and Respect Connection, they must realize that they communicate in code. And the problem is, they don’t know how to decipher the messages they send to one another.

The woman absolutely needs love, and the man absolutely needs respect. It’s as simple- and as difficult- as that.

Women give a report to build rapport. Men bond through shoulder-to-shoulder activities without talking.

“Living happily ever after” means knowing how to deal with the imperfect parts of life.

Could you be facing a crisis in faith more than a crisis in your marriage?

Suppressing negative feelings is not loving, respectful or very wise. Speak up tactfully.

We have to step back as Christ followers and ask, “Do I have false expectations that my relationship should be romantic 99% of the time?”

Husbands primarily want to hear ‘respect” talk during conflict. Wives primarily want to hear “love” talk during conflict.

[Husbands] the most powerful weapons you have are your ears. Just listen to your wife, and she is much more likely to feel understood.

It’s true that women have intuition and that men should listen to them. It’s also true that women have blind spots and need the insight of their husbands.

Your spouse deserves the truth from you. Do your best to tell it with love and respect.

God is not pink. God is not blue. God is purple. When two become one, they have the potential of displaying God’s attributes and character.

A major step toward a happy marriage is accepting differences and working them out with love and respect.

Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.

God’s commands are not burdensome, but are given to us to spare us from more pain. Why would God command you to do something that doesn’t work?

As mature men, we need to take leadership and put this out on the table. We must acknowledge our feelings- we need to feel respected. However, as we do this we must acknowledge our wife’s feelings- she needs to feel loved!

You’re the only person in the world who can meet your spouse’s deepest need for love and respect. After all, you alone are married to your spouse.

Husbands, even Jesus Himself was asked by a woman, “Do you not care?” (Luke 10:40) When your wife accuses you of not caring, decode her deeper meaning.

We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

It’s so easy to dismiss our spouse as childish because we don’t have the same vulnerabilities they do.

Wives, to energize your husband do an activity with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, without talking.

Since it is easy to focus on the negative, focus on your mate’s good qualities and express thanks with positive words of Love or Respect.

A husband may deserve contempt, but that doesn’t win him any more than harshness and anger wins the heart of a woman.

Christian maturity involves a lot of things, but surely it includes knowing how to process your anger.

As a husband, if you can grasp that you don’t always have to solve your wife’s problems, you will take a giant step toward showing her empathy and understanding.

So I encourage every husband and wife to commit to the Jesus Way of Talking. Instead of allowing the stress of the situation to control you, you can say to yourself, “Because I love the Lord and I know that He rewards every good word, I am going to be truthful even if my spouse is not. I will also be uplifting, forgiving, thankful and scriptural in my speech because my ultimate goal is to please the Lord. Whatever my spouse’s weaknesses or bad habits might be, I will not let them cause me to sin with my lips.”

[Women], your self-love cannot be derived from your husband’s love. It can affect it, but it does not determine it.

Thank the Lord that in the very beginning He created them male and female – Blue and Pink. Ask Him for patience and ever-growing understanding of how men and women see and hear differently. “He created them male and female, and He blessed them.” (Genesis 5:2)

We all need love and respect equally. But, during conflict our felt needs are as different as pink is from blue.

Words of Love and Respect must include thankfulness spoken to or about your spouse; don’t fixate on weaknesses and faults.

Our research shows that couples who pray together are more apt to reap all kinds of benefits, including better and more frequent communication, going on “dates” more frequently and having sex more frequently.

This is the Rewarded Cycle: His love blesses regardless of her respect and her respect blesses regardless of his love.

Be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

To build a lasting legacy, use proven wisdom that you glean from the Lord.

When a wife insists that her husband earn her respect, she puts him in a lose-lose situation.

No one can really practice Love and Respect unless he or she does it as unto Jesus Christ.

“With eyes of faith, envision Jesus standing just beyond the shoulder of your spouse and listening to every word you speak in every conversation, pleasant or tense. When you speak lovingly or respectfully to your spouse, you are speaking to Christ. Your spouse just happens to be there too.” This truth has sanctified the lips of many. Instead of giving their spouse a verbal whipping or choking on the idea of saying anything positive, now some spouses are motivated to speak words of unconditional love or respect.

A wife has one driving need--to feel loved. When that need is met she is happy. A husband has one driving need--to feel respected. When that need is met he is happy. When either of these needs isn’t met, things get crazy. Love and Respect reveals why spouses react negatively to each other, and how they can deal with such conflict quickly, easily and biblically.

When confronting your spouse, attack the behavior, not the person.

The Crazy Cycle is, indeed “the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25)

You must distinguish between “I can’t” and “I won’t.”

Positive changes flood a relationship immediately when both husband and wife cancel the blame game!

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

If we subscribe to the belief that because we are equal we are the same, then we’re going to expect our spouse to respond the way we do.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.