Amor y Respeto - Cuaderno De Trabajo: Videoconferencia

[Husbands] as the church places her burdens on Christ, so a woman needs to place her burdens on her husband. When she shares with you, don’t assume she is asking you to solve the problem. Ask your wife, “Do you want a solution or a listening ear?”

You both forgive for one simple but profound reason: because you know Christ has forgiven you!

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

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.

Pink and Blue perceptions not only affect seeing, they affect hearing as well. Women hear with pink hearing aids and men hear with blue hearing aids. Even more important to understand as you and your spouse seek to gain better communication, you can hear the very same words, but each of you will hear different messages.

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.

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.

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.

Mutual understanding, not communication, is the key to a healthy marriage relationship.

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

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

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.

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.

At the very bottom of things, in every case and in every conversation, you can do your marriage a huge favor by assuming she is seeking to feel loved or he is seeking to feel respected and give your spouse some grace!

Your wife feels you are open with her when you discuss financial concerns, possible job changes or ideas for your future.

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.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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

Husbands, to energize your wife give her face-to-face time, allowing her to talk and share her feelings.

Recognize your different gifts--how each of you (Pink and Blue) functions according to God’s perfect design.

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

We fool ourselves into thinking the other person causes us to be the way we are. They really don’t! But if we lock into that idea, we become helpless, hopeless victims.

Don’t label each other as bad because you differ on how you solve your troubles.

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

No matter what your struggle- criticism, constant conflict, sex, money, parenting, harsh words- learning to communicate the Love and Respect way can help you make crucial changes and build the kind of relationship that God blesses.

When a husband feels disrespected, he has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel unloving to his wife. (Perhaps the command to love was given to him precisely for this reason!) When a wife feels unloved, she has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to her husband. (Perhaps the command to respect was given to her precisely for this reason!)

The more we are upset at something, the wiser it is to let twenty-four hours pass before responding.

Your spouse may meet many of your needs, but your deepest dependency should be on your Lord.

No matter how difficult your spouse may be at the moment, your spouse does not have control over your reaction; you do. You may be experiencing disappointment, frustration or anger, but you always have a choice. A wife can choose to be disrespectful or respectful. A husband can choose to be unloving or loving.

Thank the Lord for all the trouble-free moments in which you and your spouse enjoy Him, each other, your family, your ministry and life as a whole. Ask Him for the strength to accept your measure of trouble, and the wisdom to deal with the annoyances and irritations by loving and respecting each other with new commitment. (You may also want to pray about troubles at work, at church, with the children…) “But those who marry will have trouble in this life” (1 Corinthians 7:28)

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

Being friendly to her man is one of the most effective things a woman can do to strengthen her marriage.

Do you believe that there is a God who really loves you and wants to help you?

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

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.

Marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and your reverence for Jesus Christ.

In your marriage be the first to “seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:11)

The difference between successful couples and unsuccessful couples is that successful ones keep getting up and dealing with the issues.

Accidental sparks (unwise remarks) ignite and fuel a fire, and vroom goes the Crazy Cycle.

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

Be friendly. Be friendly. Be friendly. Watch what happens.

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

Thank God for His forgiveness of your mistakes. In trying to be a loving man or a respectful woman, we blow it. Owning up to mistakes is never easy, but it is always the way to move forward. Take good care not to accuse your spouse of mistakes as you pray. Also, pray about any forgiving to be done in the family, any forgiveness that needs to be asked. Children may need forgiveness (and what about Mom and Dad?). “There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

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

Avoid like the plague trying to punish each other as a means of “motivation.” Christ-followers instinctively know that this destroys any opportunity to act out of reverence for Christ. In all marital issues, love and reverence for Christ must be our primary motivation.

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

Above all trust God when the “whys” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

Fight like a loving man and a respectful woman. Fight fair.

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

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

We have different vulnerabilities. We can pass judgment on one another all day long or we can say God made us different and that’s ok.

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?

Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.

You can be right but wrong at the top of your voice.

Each of you must focus on what God is calling you to do toward your spouse. Do not focus on what you think God is calling your spouse to do toward you.

Thank the Lord for the goodwill each of you has toward the other. Ask Him for strength to give each other the benefit of the doubt during moments when someone’s goodwill seems to be lacking. “He who seeks good finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it.” (Proverbs 11:27)

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.

Do you understand that God feels compassion for you, no matter what you have done or what your circumstances may be?

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

Marriage is a test of how you unconditionally love and respect your spouse as you obey, honor, and please the Lord.

When a wife feels unloved, it can be such a shock to her heart that she is oblivious to her disrespectful reactions toward her husband, though any man watching could see it plainly.

Unconditional respect means we confront their wrongdoings respectfully. We do not become uncivil because they are. Who they fail to be does not determine who we will be.

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

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

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)

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.

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

A marriage relationship will be energized when couples learn how to motivate each other God’s way.

If you want your husband to express appreciation for your attempts to be respectful, you must speak thankfully when he tries to be loving.

She’s not wrong for not being male. He is not wrong for not being female. When you put pink and blue together, you get purple, the color of royalty; the color of God. Together, a husband and wife reflect God’s image.

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

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

When you’re truly Christ-centered, instead of child-centered, you will be a more effective parent in the long run.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

The heart of my communication means the other person cannot get my heart to be unkind, unloving, or disrespectful. Instead, I have made a decision about who I will be independent of the other person. I won’t blame my unkindness on someone else.

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?

Your husband knows you value his friendship when you tell him you like him and you show it (he knows you love him, but he often wonders if you really like him).

Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative with lots of love and respect in between.

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.

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.

There is a discrepancy between who we want to be and see ourselves to be and how we actually sound in voice and writing. But with self-reflection and honesty, we can turn the corner and improve our communication. We need only evaluate what we are about to communicate.

How we react to a situation reveals more about us than about the other person.

It is crucial for a husband and wife to see that neither one is wrong, but both of them are very different--in body function, outlook and perspective.

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

A man has a natural, inborn desire to go out and “conquer” the challenges of his world – to work and achieve.

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.

When a husband chooses to do or say something loving, and that includes saying, ‘I’m sorry for coming across in an unloving way,’ he energizes his wife. When a wife decides to express herself respectfully, and that includes apologizing for her disrespectful attitude, she energizes her husband.

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

Always see your mate as an ally. Feedback is of little use if you see your spouse as an enemy. Giving and receiving constructive feedback is based on feelings of goodwill in both partners. Both of you need to remember that, even if you don’t always agree and even if you become irritated or angry, you are friends, and neither of you means to hurt the other.

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

If a husband loves his wife as he should, she will feel honored and respected. If a wife respects her husband as she should, he will feel loved and appreciated. It’s a win-win.

There is power and freedom that comes in understanding that no one can cause you to react in a certain way. It is your choice.

Don’t conclude that your spouse is wrong when he/she is seeking to do the right and righteous thing.

To stay the course in speaking words of Love and Respect, keep your heart in Scripture, trusting in and talking about His promises to help you.

Whether visiting a prison, feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty a drink or speaking a word of love or respect, everything is to be done to and for Christ.

Often both spouses have goodwill but are not deciphering each other’s code. She criticizes out of love, but he “hears” only disrespect. He distances himself to prevent feelings from escalating, which is the honorable thing to do, but she “sees” only his failure to be loving!

Your husband knows you appreciate his desire to protect and provide when you praise his commitment to provide for you. You empathize when he reveals his male mindset about position, status, or rank at work.

One thing to remember in this culture is if we say something complimentary towards one gender, we aren’t saying something against the other.