14 Week Small Group Guide (Download)

When there is confusion, I try to refrain from attacking another for not listening carefully (which may not be the case). Instead, I take a run at communicating again, but more clearly.

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

Love and Respect is a faith venture, not a formula.

[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?”

The Lord made women (Pink) and men (Blue) with differences, and He expects us to recognize and deal with those differences in a loving and respectful way.

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.

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

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

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

Unconditional respect, like unconditional love, is all about how one sounds (tone of voice and word choice) and appears (facial expressions and physical actions).

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.

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

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

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

Often the apparent issue isn’t the real issue; the real issue is always a matter of love or respect.

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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.

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

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

Be quick to listen and understand and you have a much better chance of being understood.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

“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.

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.”

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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

Let the Lord change you, but don’t try to change each other.

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

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.

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.

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.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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)

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.

To not forgive is to shoot yourself in the foot and put extra gas in the Crazy Cycle.

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.

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

Most marriages will succeed when obeying the command to 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.

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.

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

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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

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.

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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)

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

Your spouse has a need that you don’t have. Are you going to say there is something seriously wrong with them or will you say “Viva la Difference”?

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

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.

When one of you makes a mistake, control any anger you may feel and trust God completely, no matter what happens.