Motivating Your Man God’s Way: Applying One Word That Energizes Him to Love

Just because you may feel unloved or disrespected does not mean your spouse is sending that message.

He will feel appreciated when you recognize his problem-solving approach as his male brand of empathy.

The Lord made women (Pink) and men (Blue) with differences, and He expects us to recognize and deal with those differences in a loving and respectful way.

Be friendly. Be friendly. Be friendly. Watch what happens.

Recognize your different gifts--how each of you (Pink and Blue) functions according to God’s perfect design.

Being a person who communicates what is true frequently demands tact, and at times it can feel like sidestepping land mines. It takes work to be both truthful and tactful.

Marriage is a tool and a test to allow God’s will to be revealed in our lives.

God’s commands are there to help us, not to hinder us or hold us back as male and female.

We must bring our identity in Christ to our parenting—we must not derive our identity from our children.

Refuse to let evil turn you into a contemptuous and hateful person.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

As mature men, we need to take leadership and put this out on the table. We must acknowledge our feelings- we need to feel respected. However, as we do this we must acknowledge our wife’s feelings- she needs to feel loved!

Your spouse can have a need that you don’t have and that’s okay.

If you are seeking positive change in your marriage, you will need to make a positive change in your attitude and actions.

The Crazy Cycle is, indeed “the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25)

Let the Lord change you, but don’t try to change each other.

His love motivates her respect. Her respect motivates his love.

A woman needs love like she needs air to breathe. A man needs respect like he needs air to breathe.

Getting married reveals, usually sooner than later, an incontestable fact: your spouse cannot possibly meet all your needs and desires

We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

Holding back your love or respect will just keep the Crazy Cycle spinning away, but being mature and making the first move could slow it down.

You speak lovingly or respectfully no matter how your spouse may speak to you in return. Your spouse is not the reason--good or bad--why you speak unconditional words of love or respect. God is the reason, and as you depend on Him, you will become increasingly able to speak lovingly and respectfully to your spouse.

Your spouse can affect you, but your spouse does not control you.

Ladies, be careful. “A nagging wife goes on and on like the drip, drip, drip of the rain” (Proverbs 19:13).

Husbands, even Jesus Himself was asked by a woman, “Do you not care?” (Luke 10:40) When your wife accuses you of not caring, decode her deeper meaning.

Self-interest should never come ahead of your spouse’s interests.

We can all have moments of anger, but this does not mean we have to lose control and sin.

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

Whose voice are you listening to: Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

Your hunger for God can create an appetite in your children.

The heart of my communication means the other person cannot get my heart to be unkind, unloving, or disrespectful. Instead, I have made a decision about who I will be independent of the other person. I won’t blame my unkindness on someone else.

You can be right but wrong at the top of your voice.

Never give up. If you want to have a strong marriage, you need to accept temporary setbacks as part of the game.

As you pray together, you will truly learn to love and respect together.

She’s not wrong for not being male. He is not wrong for not being female. When you put pink and blue together, you get purple, the color of royalty; the color of God. Together, a husband and wife reflect God’s image.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

Wives, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your husband not only back to you, but to God. Husbands, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your wife not only back to you, but to God. (1 Corinthians 7:16)

It’s true that women have intuition and that men should listen to them. It’s also true that women have blind spots and need the insight of their husbands.

Fight like a loving man and a respectful woman. Fight fair.

Husbands, to energize your wife give her face-to-face time, allowing her to talk and share her feelings.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

Research shows that 70% of the couples who were extremely unhappy in their marriage, but hung in there and worked through the tough time, identified themselves as being very happy five years later.

One thing to remember in this culture is if we say something complimentary towards one gender, we aren’t saying something against the other.

Women give a report to build rapport. Men bond through shoulder-to-shoulder activities without talking.

Research and experience prove that men and women see and hear differently. Recognizing these differences and adjusting to them is absolutely necessary for reaching mutual understanding and better communication.

Share what God is saying to your heart, not what you think He needs to say to your mate.

To stay the course in speaking words of Love and Respect, keep your heart in Scripture, trusting in and talking about His promises to help you.

When Jesus said “turn the other cheek,” He wasn’t saying to be passive wimps. He was teaching that physically people can control you but if you turn and give the other cheek, suddenly you’re in control and you’re making the choices.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

How we react to a situation reveals more about us than about the other person.

In the ultimate sense you marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship with Jesus Christ.

We blame people for the bad things we do, but take credit for the good things we do.

Do you bow to the influence of Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

Could you be facing a crisis in faith more than a crisis in your marriage?

Your marriage is really a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for your Lord.

Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.

Pink and Blue perceptions not only affect seeing, they affect hearing as well. Women hear with pink hearing aids and men hear with blue hearing aids. Even more important to understand as you and your spouse seek to gain better communication, you can hear the very same words, but each of you will hear different messages.

Suppressing negative feelings is not loving, respectful or very wise. Speak up tactfully.

If a husband is commanded to agape- love his wife, then she truly needs love.

Although the Crazy Cycle is not what God intends for any marriage, all couples get on it at times from one degree to another.

She’ll feel at peace with you when you let her vent your frustrations and hurts and don’t get angry and close her off.

Clarifying is what you do before you step on your mate’s air hose and deflate his or her spirit. For example, you are having a typical conversation, but you can tell there is a misunderstanding. One of you isn’t being clear or isn’t hearing correctly. Then and there you clarify the misunderstanding before your spouse’s spirit deflates. You lovingly or respectfully clarify matters so that your spouse will not feel unloved or disrespected. The reason you take pains to clarify a seemingly small matter is to prevent the situation from becoming a love and respect issue that needs decoding. Clarifying is what you do to stay off the Crazy Cycle and keep positive, energetic feelings flowing between the two of you, to keep yourselves on the Energizing Cycle.

We get on the Crazy Cycle because without love a wife reacts without respect, and without respect a husband reacts without love.

A husband may deserve contempt, but that doesn’t win him any more than harshness and anger wins the heart of a woman.

Wives, to energize your husband do an activity with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, without talking.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

No matter how difficult your spouse may be at the moment, your spouse does not have control over your reaction; you do. You may be experiencing disappointment, frustration, or anger, but you always have a choice.

Thank the Lord for all the trouble-free moments in which you and your spouse enjoy Him, each other, your family, your ministry and life as a whole. Ask Him for the strength to accept your measure of trouble, and the wisdom to deal with the annoyances and irritations by loving and respecting each other with new commitment. (You may also want to pray about troubles at work, at church, with the children…) “But those who marry will have trouble in this life” (1 Corinthians 7:28)

A wife has one driving need--to feel loved. When that need is met she is happy. A husband has one driving need--to feel respected. When that need is met he is happy. When either of these needs isn’t met, things get crazy. Love and Respect reveals why spouses react negatively to each other, and how they can deal with such conflict quickly, easily and biblically.

We are either going to give in the darkness or we are going to give into the darkness.

It’s hard to realize that we would never act around our business associates the way we act around our spouse.

[Husbands] do you realize the power of just holding your wife’s hand?

So I encourage every husband and wife to commit to the Jesus Way of Talking. Instead of allowing the stress of the situation to control you, you can say to yourself, “Because I love the Lord and I know that He rewards every good word, I am going to be truthful even if my spouse is not. I will also be uplifting, forgiving, thankful and scriptural in my speech because my ultimate goal is to please the Lord. Whatever my spouse’s weaknesses or bad habits might be, I will not let them cause me to sin with my lips.”

Will we decide how we see God based on our circumstances, or will we see our circumstances in light of how we view God?

You must distinguish between “I can’t” and “I won’t.”

When a husband feels disrespected, he has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel unloving to his wife. (Perhaps the command to love was given to him precisely for this reason!) When a wife feels unloved, she has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to her husband. (Perhaps the command to respect was given to her precisely for this reason!)

Don’t conclude that your spouse is wrong when he/she is seeking to do the right and righteous thing.

Thank God for joining you together and for allowing you to trust Him to help you, whatever the issue. God is there for you and expects you to look to Him to keep you together as a team, so ask Him for His help in the smallest of concerns. “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (Matthew 19:6)

You have two ears and one mouth; use them proportionately.

Life is too short to fuss and fret over trivial irritations.

It’s so easy to dismiss our spouse as childish because we don’t have the same vulnerabilities they do.

You have to become proactive, rather than just trying to stop the reactive.

When you relinquish an offense, you need to send that offense somewhere. So follow Jesus’ example and release it to your heavenly Father.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

We have different vulnerabilities. We can pass judgment on one another all day long or we can say God made us different and that’s ok.

This is the Rewarded Cycle: His love blesses regardless of her respect and her respect blesses regardless of his love.

[Women], as you enter quiet dignity, not preaching at your husband or scolding him as though you were his mother, something happens in his soul as a male.

We might say that every negative action in the family has an equal and opposite negative reaction.

Above all trust God when the “whys” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

If a husband chooses to be a peacemaker--taking the needs and concerns of his wife totally into account during any kind of argument or conflict--his wife will be motivated in turn to respond to his authority during stalemates.

Here is the secret to marriage that every couple seeks and yet few find: Unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It’s the secret that will help you achieve a brand new level of intimacy.

The Love and Respect message is not about a husband earning his wife’s respect by being more loving any more than it is about a wife earning her husband’s love by being more respectful. Always love or respect is given unconditionally according to God’s commands.

The moment we cry to Him for help, He is already pleased. He gives us strength to love our children.

Optimism or pessimism? It is always a choice, no matter what your natural temperament.

When parents genuinely trust and follow the Lord and His ways, their faith spills over onto the children.

When one of you makes a mistake, control any anger you may feel and trust God completely, no matter what happens.

Unconditional respect, like unconditional love, is all about how one sounds (tone of voice and word choice) and appears (facial expressions and physical actions).

No matter how difficult your spouse may be at the moment, your spouse does not have control over your reaction; you do. You may be experiencing disappointment, frustration or anger, but you always have a choice. A wife can choose to be disrespectful or respectful. A husband can choose to be unloving or loving.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

We all need love and respect equally. But, during conflict our felt needs are as different as pink is from blue.