14 Week Small Group Guide (Download)

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

“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.

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.

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

We can communicate the truth in the best of manners, but the person may be so insecure he or she can only react and attack like a wounded bear.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

Thank God for joining you together and for allowing you to trust Him to help you, whatever the issue. God is there for you and expects you to look to Him to keep you together as a team, so ask Him for His help in the smallest of concerns. “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (Matthew 19:6)

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

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.

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)

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

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

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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.

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.

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

God’s commands are there to help us, not to hinder us or hold us back as male and female.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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!

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 evil comes at you, you’re the one who makes the choice of whether or not it is going to go into you.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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)

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

Money squabbles don’t undermine love and respect; they simply reveal unloving and disrespectful attitudes, which are the real reason why a marriage can start to wobble on the Crazy Cycle.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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

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

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.”

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.

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.

Most marriages will succeed when obeying the command to Love and Respect.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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)

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

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

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!

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

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

When a husband chooses to come across lovingly even though he feels disrespected, he can prevent the Crazy Cycle from spinning and possibly getting out of control.

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

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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

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

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.