Marriage Articles

What Does Love and Respect Enable a Wife and Husband to Do?

How Is C.H.A.I.R.S. The Key to Having More Meaningful Conversations With Your Husband?

How Is C.H.A.I.R.S. The Key to Having More Meaningful Conversations With Your Husband?

Many wives share disappointment that their husbands rarely talk to them at a deeper level. “Emerson, when we were dating, we used to talk long into the night getting to really know each other. What happened to him?”

Are You Humbly Voicing a Need or Formalizing a Complaint?

Are You Humbly Voicing a Need or Formalizing a Complaint?

In the beginning, after God had created Adam and placed him in the garden to cultivate it, He said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18).

What Does Love and Respect Enable a Wife and Husband to Do?

What Does Love and Respect Enable a Wife and Husband to Do?

In the Bible, we find two realities to which we are to respond: God’s commands and God’s promises. God calls us to obey His commands and trust His promises. Most of us have sung the song "Trust and Obey,” which captures these two quintessential truths.

You Know What You’re Saying, but What Are You Communicating?

You Know What You’re Saying, but What Are You Communicating?

There are certain phrases we have been programmed to understand in a specific way whenever we hear them. For example, if someone says to us, “We need to talk,” we know there is bad news to come and we get in defensive mode.

In What Areas Is He Feeling Disrespected? Diagnosing Your Deflated Husband

In What Areas Is He Feeling Disrespected? Diagnosing Your Deflated Husband

Is your normally happy-go-lucky husband suddenly more sulky and moody? Has your typically fully engaged and intimate husband for some mysterious reason become more distant and even physically absent?

You Know What You’re Saying, but What Are You Communicating?

In What Areas Is He Feeling Disrespected? Diagnosing Your Deflated Husband

Should a Spouse Aim for Being “Reasonably Happy” in a Marriage?

Should a Spouse Aim for Being “Reasonably Happy” in a Marriage?

By far, one of the most rewarding aspects of being a part of Love and Respect is hearing from others about their relationships. Whether it is in person, at a conference or in an e-mail exchange, it is always a blessing to learn how others are trying to strengthen their marriage and work through tough issues that unfortunately many in this world simply allow to divide them further from their spouse.

Ask a Different Question: How (Bad) Good Is Your Marriage?

Ask a Different Question: How (Bad) Good Is Your Marriage?

How bad is your marriage? What bothers you at this very moment concerning your spouse? Is your husband stonewalling you? Is your wife complaining far too much? Is the reverse true? Do you want your husband to be more romantic? Do you wish your wife would desire to be sexually intimate with you more often than she normally does? Is the reverse true?

Key Truths about a Husband and Wife Needing and Desiring Sex - Part 3 - Mutual Does Not Mean the Same

Key Truths about a Husband and Wife Needing and Desiring Sex - Part 3 - Mutual Does Not Mean the Same

In parts 1 and 2, we discussed a key difference in men and women’s approaches toward sex. Though both desire and need sex, we need to understand a wife’s interpretation of sex through the love lens and the husband’s interpretation of sex through the respect grid. I take this position because God commands the husband to love his wife in Ephesians 5:33 (C.O.U.P.L.E.) and commands a wife to respect her husband in that same verse (C.H.A.I.R.S.). (Please read parts 1 and 2 of this 3-part blog series for a more complete explanation of C.O.U.P.L.E. and C.H.A.I.R.S.) Every married couple that is concerned about their sexual intimacy needs to answer the following with honesty and accuracy.

Key Truths about a Husband and Wife Needing and Desiring Sex - Part 2 - Is It Just About Sex for the Man?

Key Truths about a Husband and Wife Needing and Desiring Sex - Part 2 - Is It Just About Sex for the Man?

In part 1 of this series, we discussed how even Hollywood unwittingly supports God’s design for unconditional love being absolutely vital to a woman in order for her to truly enjoy sex with a man long-term. Because in the end, for her the perennial question will always be, “Do you love me for me—unconditionally?” And when he assures her of his unconditional love toward her by acting out C.O.U.P.L.E.—the six biblical ways God’s Word reveals that a man should love his wife—he will be hitting on all cylinders the premiere aphrodisiac for his wife.