Love & Respect Book

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

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

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.

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

You may believe that the careless, unloving or disrespectful words you speak are because your spouse is causing you to speak this way, but Jesus says that it is coming out of your heart.

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

We get on the Crazy Cycle because without love a wife reacts without respect, and without respect a husband reacts without love.

Your husband knows you value his friendship when you tell him you like him and you show it (he knows you love him, but he often wonders if you really like him).

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

“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.“

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.

God is not pink. God is not blue. God is purple. When two become one, they have the potential of displaying God’s attributes and character.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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)

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

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

No one can really practice Love and Respect unless he or she does it as unto Jesus Christ.

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

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.

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

Positive changes flood a relationship immediately when both husband and wife cancel the blame game!

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

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

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Husbands primarily want to hear ‘respect” talk during conflict. Wives primarily want to hear “love” talk during conflict.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

Here is the secret to marriage that every couple seeks and yet few find: Unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It’s the secret that will help you achieve a brand new level of intimacy.

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.

Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative with lots of love and respect in between.

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

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

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.

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.

Unconditional love or respect is never wasted. Hang onto this promise: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

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!

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?

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

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

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

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 husband feels disrespected, it is especially hard to love his wife. When a wife feels unloved, it is especially hard to respect her husband.

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

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

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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.

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.

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.