A weekly podcast with Emerson Eggerichs, Ph.D.
Read about Marriage, Parenting and Christian Life
Short video questions and answers with Emerson
Curated content on a variety of topics
Browse all Love & Respect books, studies, and gifts
Couple and Small Group series for your home or church
Love & Respect and many more by Emerson Eggerichs, Ph.D.
A few things you might enjoy or gift to someone else
Learn a little about Love & Respect
In partnership with Matt Loehr and Dare to Be Different
Support us and impact others through your generous donation.
Reach out with any questions you have!
Browse through and read hundreds of articles on the topic of marriage
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.
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.
Though God commands the husband to love and a wife to respect, a strange twist might take place. A wife puts on respect for one reason: to get her husband to be loving. A husband puts on love solely to get his wife to respect him.One pastor who wrote me shared his concerns fearing this very thing: that husbands and wives will manipulate each other when applying love and respect based on Ephesians 5:33:
Husbands and wives have many hot topics, but not many rate higher than sex and childrearing techniques. Yes, we can throw finances, in-laws, and work issues into the mix, but sex and childrearing are usually right up there for most couples. A husband wrote:
Over a ten-year period Fritz Ridenour was my editor. He soon became a family friend. Because of that he penned a poem for the wedding of Joy Eggerichs and Matt Reed. Those of you who know the love and respect message and all of our tag lines will appreciate his brilliance. THE BALLAD OF PINK AND BLUE
In part 1, we discussed Job and his disrespectful wife and how he was able to love her “as to the Lord,” despite her being a conduit for the devil. Now let’s turn to a biblical example of an unloving husband with a wife who found a way to still respect him. What about the Respectful Wife? What about the wife living with a man who turns everybody off?
Articles, Podcasts, Ask Emerson on a concept or theme