14 Week Small Group Guide (Download)

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.

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.

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.

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

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

Just because you may feel unloved or disrespected does not mean your spouse is sending that message.

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

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

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 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.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Clarifying is what you do before you step on your mate’s air hose and deflate his or her spirit. For example, you are having a typical conversation, but you can tell there is a misunderstanding. One of you isn’t being clear or isn’t hearing correctly. Then and there you clarify the misunderstanding before your spouse’s spirit deflates. You lovingly or respectfully clarify matters so that your spouse will not feel unloved or disrespected. The reason you take pains to clarify a seemingly small matter is to prevent the situation from becoming a love and respect issue that needs decoding. Clarifying is what you do to stay off the Crazy Cycle and keep positive, energetic feelings flowing between the two of you, to keep yourselves on the Energizing Cycle.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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.

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)

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

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

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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

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

You can be right in the argument, but wrong in your approach.

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.

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

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.

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

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)

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.

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

Marital researchers agree that a huge percentage of communication problems between husband and wife are due not to what is said but to how it is said – the attitude and tone of voice.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

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

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

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

“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.“

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

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

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

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

A strong woman of dignity puts on respect out of her love and reverence for Jesus Christ. She trusts that His word not only protects and empowers her, but also rewards her with incomprehensible eternal blessings.

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

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)

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

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

Will we decide how we see God based on our circumstances, or will we see our circumstances in light of how we view God?

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.

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.

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

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)

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.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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