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

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

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.

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.

Can you begin to trust that God feels love for you even when you don’t feel that love?

Mutual submission is the only way to live fairly together with mutual authority.

When there is confusion, I try to refrain from attacking another for not listening carefully (which may not be the case). Instead, I take a run at communicating again, but more clearly.

Trust God when the “why’s” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

[Women], your self-love cannot be derived from your husband’s love. It can affect it, but it does not determine it.

The key to motivating another person is meeting their deepest need, especially during conflict.

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

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

When evil comes at you, you’re the one who makes the choice of whether or not it is going to go into you.

If you want your wife to express appreciation for your attempts to be loving, you must use thankful words when she tries to speak or act respectfully.

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.

God’s commands are not burdensome, but are given to us to spare us from more pain. Why would God command you to do something that doesn’t work?

Love and Respect is a faith venture, not a formula.

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

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.

Do not live by the standards of Hollywood; trust what God says in His Holy Word.

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

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.

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!

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

God rewards your obedience to love and respect, even if your spouse does not respond!

To build a lasting legacy, use proven wisdom that you glean from the Lord.

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

Your wife will feel esteemed when you speak highly of her in front of others.

A man has a natural, inborn desire to go out and “conquer” the challenges of his world – to work and achieve.

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

Both Judas and Peter denied Jesus Christ, but there is a huge difference between a Judas and a Peter.

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.

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

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.

Be quick to listen and understand and you have a much better chance of being understood.

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)

Husbands primarily want to hear ‘respect” talk during conflict. Wives primarily want to hear “love” talk during conflict.

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

Often the apparent issue isn’t the real issue; the real issue is always a matter of love or respect.

Money squabbles don’t undermine love and respect; they simply reveal unloving and disrespectful attitudes, which are the real reason why a marriage can start to wobble on the Crazy Cycle.

At the very bottom of things, in every case and in every conversation, you can do your marriage a huge favor by assuming she is seeking to feel loved or he is seeking to feel respected and give your spouse some grace!

“Respect is a man’s deepest value. I have had numerous men tell me, ‘I would rather live with a wife who respected me but did not love me than live with a wife who loved me but did not respect me.’ These men are not saying that they are indifferent to love. They know they need love, but they need to feel respected even more than they need to feel loved.“

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.

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

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

Do you understand that God feels compassion for you, no matter what you have done or what your circumstances may be?

Positive changes flood a relationship immediately when both husband and wife cancel the blame game!

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

Your wife feels you are open with her when you discuss financial concerns, possible job changes or ideas for your future.

When you look to God and His Word as your ultimate source of significance and security, you don’t demand that your spouse take that role in your life. And as you draw strength from the Lord individually, He draws you closer together as a couple.

God is not pink. God is not blue. God is purple. When two become one, they have the potential of displaying God’s attributes and character.

Avoid like the plague trying to punish each other as a means of “motivation.” Christ-followers instinctively know that this destroys any opportunity to act out of reverence for Christ. In all marital issues, love and reverence for Christ must be our primary motivation.

Thank God for His forgiveness of your mistakes. In trying to be a loving man or a respectful woman, we blow it. Owning up to mistakes is never easy, but it is always the way to move forward. Take good care not to accuse your spouse of mistakes as you pray. Also, pray about any forgiving to be done in the family, any forgiveness that needs to be asked. Children may need forgiveness (and what about Mom and Dad?). “There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

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

Mutual understanding, not communication, is the key to a healthy marriage relationship.

As a wife, if you can start to understand how important your husband’s work is to him, you will take a giant step toward communicating respect and honor, two things that he values even more than your love.

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

Always remember that Pink and Blue have different wiring, different preferences. Assume your spouse has goodwill toward you, no matter what. Both of you can be right, while being different.

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

If you want your husband to express appreciation for your attempts to be respectful, you must speak thankfully when he tries to be loving.

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 with conflict.

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

When confronting your spouse, attack the behavior, not the person.

[Husbands] the most powerful weapons you have are your ears. Just listen to your wife, and she is much more likely to feel understood.

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

Responding to offensive words or actions with your own offensive words and actions is damaging and unproductive.

We fool ourselves into thinking the other person causes us to be the way we are. They really don’t! But if we lock into that idea, we become helpless, hopeless victims.

If husbands and wives are to understand the Love and Respect Connection, they must realize that they communicate in code. And the problem is, they don’t know how to decipher the messages they send to one another.

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

You must “ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves.”

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.

Feeling unloved, a wife gets defensive and acts offensively without respect. Feeling disrespected, a husband gets defensive and acts offensively without love.

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

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

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

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.

Unconditional respect means we confront their wrongdoings respectfully. We do not become uncivil because they are. Who they fail to be does not determine who we will be.

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

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

He will feel appreciated when you disagree with him only in private and honor his authority in front of the kids.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

Don’t pressure yourself with perfection. We are going to fail. A righteous man falls 7 times but gets back up.

Stay the course regardless of the child’s respect and obedience. This is the Family Rewarded Cycle: a parents love unto Christ regardless of the child.

The parent-child relationship is as easy, and as difficult, as love and respect.

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

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

It is crucial for a husband and wife to see that neither one is wrong, but both of them are very different--in body function, outlook and perspective.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

Thank the Lord for the goodwill each of you has toward the other. Ask Him for strength to give each other the benefit of the doubt during moments when someone’s goodwill seems to be lacking. “He who seeks good finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it.” (Proverbs 11:27)

“With eyes of faith, envision Jesus standing just beyond the shoulder of your spouse and listening to every word you speak in every conversation, pleasant or tense. When you speak lovingly or respectfully to your spouse, you are speaking to Christ. Your spouse just happens to be there too.” This truth has sanctified the lips of many. Instead of giving their spouse a verbal whipping or choking on the idea of saying anything positive, now some spouses are motivated to speak words of unconditional love or respect.

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

When your wife comes to talk to you, listen to her. Realize she is coming to you because you matter more to her than anyone else. She has certain emotional needs and only you can meet them. Sometimes she may say things that don’t make sense to you and she is apt to misspeak and exaggerate when she is upset, but don’t put her down. Instead, listen to her heart. Give her a chance to express her concerns and, as she does so, don’t try to fix her. Don’t give her your solutions unless she asks for them.

I have concluded that those of us in the church who believe we have the Truth are not using the whole truth. A crucial part of God’s Word has been completely ignored, or perhaps simply gone unnoticed, when it has been there right under our noses the whole time! Many Christian spouses know Ephesians 5:33 and can at least paraphrase it. The Apostle Paul tells husbands to love their wives as much as they love themselves, and wives are to respect their husbands. But is anyone really listening? Perhaps the first step to better communication between husband and wife is to hear what God’s Word clearly says. --Emerson

Don’t label each other as bad because you differ on how you solve your troubles.

Your husband knows you value his friendship when you tell him you like him and you show it (he knows you love him, but he often wonders if you really like him).

Our research shows that couples who pray together are more apt to reap all kinds of benefits, including better and more frequent communication, going on “dates” more frequently and having sex more frequently.