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Countless divorcees have told us over the years that had they known the Love and Respect truth underlying the negative cycle they found themselves constantly on (which we refer to as the Crazy Cycle), they would never have divorced.
Husbands and wives are going to disagree . . . many times. They’re going to have arguments . . . many times. On top of that, husbands will disappoint wives, and wives will disappoint husbands, bringing reason for the offended or hurt spouse to broach a possibly sensitive or tough topic.
There is an axiom that I have used in my teachings for as long as I can remember that, to this day, I still fully believe in its simple but life-changing truth: “My response is my responsibility.”
When I was on staff at a church in the 1970s, we sought to serve widows and orphans. Though they were not all widows, we decided to lean into assisting single parents specifically.
Wives are driven to connect, to be understood, and to receive empathy, which is a wonderful characteristic of God’s beautiful pink design of them.
Can a wife be guilty of helping her husband too much? At first glance, that may sound preposterous, right? I mean, of all the burdensome things a wife deals with during the day in managing her home and feeding her marriage, do we really have to add “don’t help husband too much” to her list? The events of Genesis 2 speak to this, actually. Take another look at these verses that you are probably more than familiar with already:
In a previous article, I wrote about some of the disheartening times when Paul’s Holy Spirit-inspired words on sexual intimacy in 1 Corinthians 7 were spun so as to justify one-sided coercion rather than mutual consent. Unfortunately, throughout history many husbands have taken a one-sided position to 1 Corinthians 7:4 and demanded fulfillment of their male conjugal rights. This is clearly contrary to Abba Father's revelation to husbands and wives and ignores the second half of 1 Corinthians 7:4.
In the near future, I will be going deeper on the topic of sex in marriage for all of our Love and Respect friends. The title? Love and Respect (and Sex): Coming Together as Husband and Wife. Interested in learning more? Would you like to add your stories to the content? Read on, and I’ll show you how.
Thank you Connie Cavanaugh for sharing your experience at a Love and Respect conference. In the weeks leading up to the Love and Respect marriage conference at church last week, the women were excited, but the men were tentative.
Have you ever told someone the oft-used phrase that “two wrongs don’t make a right”? If you have kids you no doubt have. When big brother pushes little sister and she charges at him in response, knocking him over backward, both get in trouble with mom and dad because “two wrongs don’t make a right.” And it’s true: Never in the history of sibling rivalries, sports, war, politics, or any other area have conflicts been appropriately resolved after the initial victim retaliated with his or her own dose of medicine.
In my conferences on Love and Respect, I like to use the analogy that men and women are as different as pink is from blue. Women look at the world through pink sunglasses, hear through pink hearing aids, and speak through a pink megaphone; while men do it all with blue. Which basically means a man and a woman can hear the exact same sentence and interpret it in completely different ways, or even say the exact same thing but mean completely different things with their words.
One of the questions I hear the most is some variation of, “Are you telling me I have to unconditionally respect my husband’s bad behavior and become a door mat?Everyone knows respect must be earned!” Interestingly, in our culture we don’t have a problem understanding unconditional love… in fact, we see unconditional love as the right of every human being. Imagine expecting our children to “earn” our love!We would disapprove of such parenting. Most of us have no problem separating the person from their behavior when it comes to love.Love the person, hate the sin.Right?
Based on scripture’s command in Ephesians 5:33 for the husband to love his wife and for the wife to respect her husband, Sarah and I have found two challenges. One, to follow this command unconditionally means we are to love and respect each other even during our male and female differences. Two, not only are we to love each other when these male and female differences between us are highlighted, but we are to also love and respect these male and female differences themselves as part of God's beautiful design.
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