Love and Respect Husband and Wife + Logo Mug Set

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Your position in Christ is what counts, not your less-than-perfect performance.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

“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.“

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

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)

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.

We might say that every negative action in the family has an equal and opposite negative reaction.

Research shows that 70% of the couples who were extremely unhappy in their marriage, but hung in there and worked through the tough time, identified themselves as being very happy five years later.

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

“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.

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

He will feel appreciated when you recognize his problem-solving approach as his male brand of empathy.

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.

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!)

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

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

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.

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.

Trusting and obeying God’s Word because we love and reverence God never, ever makes us a hypocrite! When the alarm goes off in the morning, we get up, even when we don’t feel like it getting up. Because we do what we don’t feel like doing, does that make us hypocrites? No, it’s a sign we are responsible people. Showing respectful behavior when we don’t “feel respectful” is evidence of maturity.

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

God designed the woman to love. He’s not going to command her to agape her husband when He created her to do that in the first place. God is not into redundancy.

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

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?

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

When you possess a forgiving spirit, words of Love and Respect will flow authentically from your lips- and realize that the Lord Himself is listening to you at moments like these. He knows you are not powerless, but actually full of power that He has granted you.

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

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

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.

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

We are either going to give in the darkness or we are going to give into the darkness.

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

Through Jesus and Peter, God set forth His standard for living in the unconditional dimension: choose to be loving even when the other person is not; do what is right regardless of the treatment you receive. I believe this standard applies directly to marriage. A husband who speaks lovingly to his disrespectful wife will be rewarded; and a wife who speaks respectfully to her unloving, not-worthy-of-respect husband will be rewarded. Whether you are husband or wife, the reward is what can keep you going in the midst of the craziness: knowing that God commends you, knowing that you have found his favor for your words and actions.

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

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.

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.

Mutual submission is the only way to live fairly together with mutual authority.

Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for Jesus Christ. God is using your spouse to bring you an eternal reward.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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.

The key to motivating another person is meeting their deepest need, especially during conflict.

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

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?

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 with conflict.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

Share what God is saying to your heart, not what you think He needs to say to your mate.

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

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

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?”

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

As a wife, if you can start to understand how important your husband’s work is to him, you will take a giant step toward communicating respect and honor, two things that he values even more than your love.

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

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

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.

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

It’s crucial to communicate with the right tone of voice and the right expression on your face.

Wives, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your husband not only back to you, but to God. Husbands, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your wife not only back to you, but to God. (1 Corinthians 7:16)

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

We must bring our identity in Christ to our parenting—we must not derive our identity from our children.

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

When you love or respect unconditionally regardless of the outcome, you are following God and His will for you.

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.

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.

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

We are equal but we are not the same.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

If you want your wife to express appreciation for your attempts to be loving, you must use thankful words when she tries to speak or act respectfully.

Both Judas and Peter denied Jesus Christ, but there is a huge difference between a Judas and a Peter.