Respectfully Yours - Leader's Guide

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

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.

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

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

The woman absolutely needs love, and the man absolutely needs respect. It’s as simple- and as difficult- as that.

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.

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

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

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.

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)

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.

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.

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

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

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 are equal but we are not the same.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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.

“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.“

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

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

At the very bottom of things, in every case and in every conversation, you can do your marriage a huge favor by assuming she is seeking to feel loved or he is seeking to feel respected and give your spouse some grace!

His love blesses regardless of her respect; her respect blesses regardless of his love.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean the other person is offensive.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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.

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.

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

Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.

Words of Love or Respect must uplift your spouse, edifying- never manipulating him or her.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

The heart of my communication means the other person cannot get my heart to be unkind, unloving, or disrespectful. Instead, I have made a decision about who I will be independent of the other person. I won’t blame my unkindness on someone else.

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

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

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

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)

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

“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.

He will feel appreciated when you disagree with him only in private and honor his authority in front of the kids.

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.