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In part 1, we shared 1 Peter 3:1–2 and Peter’s command to a wife to remain respectful to her disobedient husband. The first major reason to do this is because by doing so they will find favor in the eyes of God.
A woman wrote to me: "My husband has expressed that he does not love me and now is involved with another woman. I have read your book and have applied many things concerning this respect message.
“Respect is earned.” Have you heard that sentiment before? It’s a fairly popular thought in culture today, even bleeding into the church and our interpretations of passages like Ephesians 5:33: “However, each one of you [husbands] also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
Men and women have differing sexual and emotional needs, which I have preached for forty years. But be assured, this does not mean that one does not have sexual needs and the other does not have emotional needs. Differing does not mean nonexistent.
Back before I began sharing across the world the Love and Respect message, based on Ephesians 5:33, we surveyed seven thousand people with the following question: "During a conflict with your spouse, do you feel unloved or disrespected?"
Last but not least, I cannot overemphasize enough the positives that can result from any gray-area disagreement when one or both spouses focus on looking for the common ground in the disagreement.
In part 1, I made the argument that the vast majority of married couples going into battle with each other over disagreements they have are not doing so over black-and-white issues of morality. Instead, their disagreements—that at times escalate into knock-down, drag-out fights—are typically in the gray areas of life, where neither spouse is wrong, but one is “less right” than the other.
In my experience, the vast majority of married couples going into battle with each other over disagreements are not doing so over black-and-white issues of morality. They are not up in arms with each other because one is hoping to hold up the bank together this Friday like Bonnie and Clyde, while the other is trying to convince them that a life of crime is not the answer. One parent is not trying to convince the other that they should train their children as MMA fighters so they can be kings of the playground.
Some of us demand that our spouse agree with us because if they don't, they will be sinning. If we say yes to something, we tell them that they, too, must say yes or risk grieving the heart of God. Unless there is a clear violation of Scripture, morality, or the law, our spouse is not inherently wrong when varying with us. We would never say that the color pink is wrong for not being blue. What artist would go on television declaring that blue is innately wrong for not being pink? That's silly.
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