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

“Help! Forget Respect—What If I Don’t Even Love My Husband?”

“Help! Forget Respect—What If I Don’t Even Love My Husband?”

In Ephesians 5:33, husbands are commanded to love their wives, and wives are commanded to respect their husbands. One obvious question that I often receive concerning this is, “Why aren’t wives commanded to love their husbands?” The answer I always share is that God is not in the business of commanding us to do things that we naturally do on our own. Put simply, women love to love.

Love and Respect Can’t Be Treated Like New Year’s Resolutions

Love and Respect Can’t Be Treated Like New Year’s Resolutions

It’s that time of year again—when millions all over the world make New Year’s resolutions. Many will want to lose weight and become healthier in general; many will take up a new hobby or skill; and others will seek to become more organized in different aspects of their lives. But no matter what a person’s goodwilled intention for the New Year is, studies show time after time that roughly 80 percent of people fail in their New Year’s resolutions.

Are You Married to a Judas or a Peter?

Are You Married to a Judas or a Peter?

Having spoken for more than two decades about Love and Respect and counseling couples for even longer than that, I have heard more than a few complaints from husbands and wives about their spouses, especially in emails: “This man will never love me the way you talk about! You would not believe what I have been putting up with all these years!”

Your Spouse Can Disagree with You without It Becoming a Love and Respect Issue

Your Spouse Can Disagree with You without It Becoming a Love and Respect Issue

Have you and your spouse given each other the freedom to disagree without everything escalating to a love and respect issue? A wife wants the freedom to disagree with her husband without him feeling she is being disrespectful to him. Many times a wife wishes to give her opinion on what he is proposing, but he interprets her mere questioning as discourteous. She desires the freedom to give her input on his ideas, but will he give her that right? Or will he say something like, "There you go again, disrespecting my ideas"?