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

Three Central Questions

Three major questions are addressed in the Love and Respect Message. One, why do we negatively react to each other? Two, how can we energize our spouse to respond more positively? And, three, what can we do when our spouse continues to be negative while we are trying to be loving and respectful? Will God help?

Three Central Questions

Do Men and Women Need Both Love and Respect Equally?

Do Men and Women Need Both Love and Respect Equally?

We all need love and respect. I preach this and I teach this. I am not dogmatic in suggesting that a husband does not need love. I am not dogmatic in suggesting that a wife does not need respect. However, because Ephesians 5:33 reveals that a husband must love his wife and a wife must respect her husband, we see a distinction that is full of significance. Maybe we can answer this way: though we all need love and respect equally, like we all need water and food equally, a wife has a felt need for love and a husband has a felt need for respect. Said another way, she feels hunger pains for her husband's love more often in the marriage and a husband feels more thirsty for his wife's respect.Why does this felt need surface?

Research Reveals that “Love And Respect” is the Key

Research Reveals that “Love And Respect” is the Key

The findings are in. Love and Respect is the key to a successful marriage! Research reveals that during marital conflict a husband most often reacts when feeling disrespected and a wife reacts when feeling unloved. We asked 7,000 people this question: When you are in conflict with your spouse or significant other, do you feel unloved or disrespected? 83% of the men said “disrespected.” 72% of the women said “unloved.”

My Husband Is a Mysterious Island Around Which I Paddle

My Husband Is a Mysterious Island Around Which I Paddle

“Talk to me!” commands the wife. She and her husband are having a conflict. The husband retorts, “I don’t want to talk about it.” He exits the room. She follows him to talk. He does not give her access to his heart. He closes her off. It is as though he is an island around which she paddles but he does not permit her to land. She is in disbelief. She is seeking to do the loving thing by communicating but he lacks interest in responding. She thinks, “How can he be so unloving?” She is hurt, confused, angry and frightened.