Mother & Son Course Workbook (Download)

Don’t pressure yourself with perfection. We are going to fail. A righteous man falls 7 times but gets back up.

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.

When you’re truly Christ-centered, instead of child-centered, you will be a more effective parent in the long run.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Your wife will feel esteemed when you speak highly of her in front of others.

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.

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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.

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!)

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

[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?”

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

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

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).

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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

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

“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.“

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

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

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.

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!

When you relinquish an offense, you need to send that offense somewhere. So follow Jesus’ example and release it to your heavenly Father.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

If we subscribe to the belief that because we are equal we are the same, then we’re going to expect our spouse to respond the way we do.

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You speak lovingly or respectfully no matter how your spouse may speak to you in return. Your spouse is not the reason--good or bad--why you speak unconditional words of love or respect. God is the reason, and as you depend on Him, you will become increasingly able to speak lovingly and respectfully to your spouse.

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

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.

Stay the course regardless of the child’s respect and obedience. This is the Family Rewarded Cycle: a parents love unto Christ regardless of the child.

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

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 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?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

When we speak before we think, we widen the chances the other person(s) will be notably hurt, frustrated, confused, angry, fearful, or offended by something we’ve communicated.

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

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

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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.

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

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

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 play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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.

To get offended is easy, but to forgive is within your power as you walk in His steps.

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

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.