Respectfully Yours - Leader's Guide

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

Unconditional respect means we confront their wrongdoings respectfully. We do not become uncivil because they are. Who they fail to be does not determine who we will be.

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

We have to step back as Christ followers and ask, “Do I have false expectations that my relationship should be romantic 99% of the time?”

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Our research shows that couples who pray together are more apt to reap all kinds of benefits, including better and more frequent communication, going on “dates” more frequently and having sex more frequently.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

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

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.

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.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

When confronting your spouse, attack the behavior, not the person.

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

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.

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

His love motivates her respect. Her respect motivates his love.

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.

We are equal but we are not the same.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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).

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 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.

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.

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

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.

When you love or respect unconditionally regardless of the outcome, you are following God and His will for you.

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

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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)

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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!

It’s crucial to communicate with the right tone of voice and the right expression on your face.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

Mistakes can’t be undone, but they can be forgiven.

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.

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

When you come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

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

[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 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?

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)

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

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.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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 spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

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.