Building Blocks Workbook (Download)

Your words reveal your heart.

When we speak before we think, we widen the chances the other person(s) will be notably hurt, frustrated, confused, angry, fearful, or offended by something we’ve communicated.

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.

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.

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

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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

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

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

Your hunger for God can create an appetite in your children.

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

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

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

We blame people for the bad things we do, but take credit for the good things we do.

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.

His love blesses regardless of her respect; her respect blesses regardless of his love.

I often stress that one of the greatest rewards any persevering spouse can have is being a good example and influence on the children in the family.

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

Research and experience prove that men and women see and hear differently. Recognizing these differences and adjusting to them is absolutely necessary for reaching mutual understanding and better communication.

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

If you are seeking positive change in your marriage, you will need to make a positive change in your attitude and actions.

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

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

[Husbands] do you realize the power of just holding your wife’s hand?

The parent-child relationship is as easy, and as difficult, as love and 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.

In the ultimate sense you marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship with Jesus Christ.

Self-interest should never come ahead of your spouse’s interests.

When the wife flatly says her husband will have to earn her respect before she gives him any, she leaves the husband in a lose-lose situation. Now he is responsible for both love and respect in the relationship. He must unconditionally love his wife and earn her respect.

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

Your spouse can affect you, but your spouse does not control you.

If a husband is commanded to agape- love his wife, then she truly needs love.

Never give up. If you want to have a strong marriage, you need to accept temporary setbacks as part of the game.

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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

His love motivates her respect. Her respect motivates his love.

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

Refuse to let evil turn you into a contemptuous and hateful person.

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

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

When sorting out how to slow down the Crazy Cycle, it helps to remember that men are commanded to love because they don’t love naturally, and on the other side, women are commanded to respect because they don’t respect naturally.

Life is too short to fuss and fret over trivial irritations.

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.

I have concluded that those of us in the church who believe we have the Truth are not using the whole truth. A crucial part of God’s Word has been completely ignored, or perhaps simply gone unnoticed, when it has been there right under our noses the whole time! Many Christian spouses know Ephesians 5:33 and can at least paraphrase it. The Apostle Paul tells husbands to love their wives as much as they love themselves, and wives are to respect their husbands. But is anyone really listening? Perhaps the first step to better communication between husband and wife is to hear what God’s Word clearly says. --Emerson

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.

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

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!)

When we feel crippling discouragement by the sinful choices and outcomes of our kids, we must not let this permanently deter us from parenting God’s way.

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

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

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

Whose voice are you listening to: Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

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

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

When your wife comes to talk to you, listen to her. Realize she is coming to you because you matter more to her than anyone else. She has certain emotional needs and only you can meet them. Sometimes she may say things that don’t make sense to you and she is apt to misspeak and exaggerate when she is upset, but don’t put her down. Instead, listen to her heart. Give her a chance to express her concerns and, as she does so, don’t try to fix her. Don’t give her your solutions unless she asks for them.

Your spouse can have a need that you don’t have and that’s okay.

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

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.

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

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)

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.

Do not live by the standards of Hollywood; trust what God says in His Holy Word.

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.

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

She’ll feel at peace with you when you let her vent your frustrations and hurts and don’t get angry and close her off.

Parenting is a faith venture. As we parent “unto Christ” we reap God’s reward, “knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord” (Eph. 6:8 NKJV)

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

[Women], as you enter quiet dignity, not preaching at your husband or scolding him as though you were his mother, something happens in his soul as a male.

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.

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

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

Holding back your love or respect will just keep the Crazy Cycle spinning away, but being mature and making the first move could slow it down.

We have discovered that as women motivate their man God’s way, men are energized to love them better. It doesn’t matter if your marriage is good or seems like there is no hope. We have seen God move in powerful ways even when things looked hopeless.

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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

If a husband chooses to be a peacemaker--taking the needs and concerns of his wife totally into account during any kind of argument or conflict--his wife will be motivated in turn to respond to his authority during stalemates.

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

Getting married reveals, usually sooner than later, an incontestable fact: your spouse cannot possibly meet all your needs and desires

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

Optimism or pessimism? It is always a choice, no matter what your natural temperament.

Before hitting send, ask yourself, "Have I listened carefully and understand the exact issue on the table?"

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

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

Though the end can be worthy (to be loved and respected), when each uses unholy means (unloving and disrespectful words and actions), it will not achieve those ends. We must treat others as we expect them to treat us. To deny this makes us arrogant or fools, or both.

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