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Browse through and read hundreds of articles on the topic of marriage
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.
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?
Do you have a specific sports team that you are outright fanatic about? Suppose you are a passionate Yankees fan whose white bedroom walls have navy blue pinstripes on them and your living room coasters have pictures of Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Derek Jeter, and other Yankees greats on them.
A couple attended the Love and Respect Marriage Conference recently, and several weeks later the wife wrote to me to share some of the reasons why they had attended, along with her frustrations for the lack of changes she had seen in him since the conference.
I have spoken often about the need to understand and appreciate God’s pink and blue design of women and men, respectively, because our differences undoubtedly go well beyond the biological.
Q: My husband is addicted to drugs and it’s destroying our marriage. He refuses to talk about it. What can I do? Dr. E says: As you know, giving advice through email is not the ideal. I desire to serve you with godly wisdom, yet realize I don't have all the pieces, and have not heard both sides. Please keep this in mind as I attempt to help within these limitations. The first thing I suggest is to seek godly, professional guidance from someone who is for your marriage, but understands addiction. Then I suggest following these 3 steps to incorporate Love & Respect into the process:
Have you ever had your doubts that something was too good to be true? Especially something that goes against the “norm”? We want to share Jo’s experience as she began to apply Ephesians 5:33 to her marriage. She believed her friend’s marriage was changed, but what about hers? Read on: I had my doubts. I joined a Motivating your Man God's Way study at church because a friend of mine had done it and said it changed her marriage. I thought it was probably a worthwhile pursuit, but "life changing"? I had my doubts.
I do not believe in marital bliss 24/7 despite the pictures on social media to the contrary. As a marriage expert is my disbelief rooted in a cynicism about marital happiness? Not at all. I believe in marital happiness, I just don’t believe such happiness happens 24/7. What I do believe is that those who are the happiest in their marriages agree with me. The key to marital happiness is accepting a degree of marital unhappiness.
Did you hear about the demolition expert who went by the name K.B.? When asked why everyone called him K.B. he replied, “It stands for Kaboom.” I sometimes start a fire in my outside fireplace by soaking a few logs with gasoline and then throwing a match on the timber. It goes KABOOM! However, I never, ever, throw gasoline on the fire! That would be called a killer KABOOM!
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