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

Enduring A Small Hurt Without Lashing Out

Enduring A Small Hurt Without Lashing Out

A wife writes me, “I just finished reading Cracking the Communication Code (now The Language of Love & Respect). Thank you so much for sharing your message! I have learned a great deal about what God desires for me as a wife, and I have already found great joy in putting the principles into action. My husband and I have been married just over 2 years, and we have a great relationship.

If Only

The enemy killed her husband. As a military man, deployed overseas, doing his duty for his country, he gave the ultimate sacrifice. But after 17 1/2 years of marriage, this woman entered widowhood, another immeasurable sacrifice. Brokenhearted, she writes to me, telling some of her story. "My husband

If Only

Stereotyping?

A woman writes, “Please help. I have a women's study group and we are watching the DVD. I know that Emerson has several times mentioned that the love and respect issues are 'typical' and not all-inclusive to the point of stereotyping. However, I have a friend who can't see past the 'stereotype' issue...all men need respect, not love, and all women need love, not respect, PERIOD.”

Stereotyping?

Too Simplistic In Light of Serious Marital Problems?

Too Simplistic In Light of Serious Marital Problems?

A critic states, "Love and respect is too simplistic for couples who have more serious problems." Yes, many couples have serious problems beyond love and respect. However, those serious problems do not justify neglecting love and respect in favor of the alternative: hate and contempt. Not only is hostility and disdain destructive of intimacy, such behavior opposes God's command to love and respect in marriage (Ephesians 5:33).