The Language of Love & Respect

No one can really practice Love and Respect unless he or she does it as unto Jesus Christ.

We can communicate the truth in the best of manners, but the person may be so insecure he or she can only react and attack like a wounded bear.

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.

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

We all need to wrestle with the spiritual truth that God is good. If you don’t believe God is good, you won’t trust His word. If you don’t trust His word, you will find excuses to ignore His commands.

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

Do you believe that there is a God who really loves you and wants to help you?

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

When a wife insists that her husband earn her respect, she puts him in a lose-lose situation.

When a husband feels disrespected, it is especially hard to love his wife. When a wife feels unloved, it is especially hard to respect her husband.

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.

Respect for the husband is just as important as love for the wife.

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

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.

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.

The woman absolutely needs love, and the man absolutely needs respect. It’s as simple- and as difficult- as that.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

You can be right in the argument, but wrong in your approach.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Your spouse deserves the truth from you. Do your best to tell it with love and respect.

Mistakes can’t be undone, but they can be forgiven.

Accidental sparks (unwise remarks) ignite and fuel a fire, and vroom goes the Crazy Cycle.

We are equal but we are not the same.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

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

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

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

Your spouse may meet many of your needs, but your deepest dependency should be on your Lord.

The difference between successful couples and unsuccessful couples is that successful ones keep getting up and dealing with the issues.

A parent needs to feel respected, especially during conflicts...A child need to feel loved, especially during disputes.

When a wife asks, “Do you love me?” She is not trying to put her husband on the spot. She is simply looking for reassurance.

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

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.

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

God is not trying to trick you or mess with you. Trust that He wants to reveal Himself to you just as much as He wants to reveal Himself to the world.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

As strong and powerful as marriage bonds can become, our deepest dependency must be on the Lord, not another human being.

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

When you possess a forgiving spirit, words of Love and Respect will flow authentically from your lips- and realize that the Lord Himself is listening to you at moments like these. He knows you are not powerless, but actually full of power that He has granted you.

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.

To not forgive is to shoot yourself in the foot and put extra gas in the Crazy Cycle.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

In your marriage be the first to “seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:11)

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

When we feel crippling discouragement by the sinful choices and outcomes of our kids, we must not let this permanently deter us from parenting God’s way.

When you’re truly Christ-centered, instead of child-centered, you will be a more effective parent in the long run.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

God designed the woman to love. He’s not going to command her to agape her husband when He created her to do that in the first place. God is not into redundancy.

There is power and freedom that comes in understanding that no one can cause you to react in a certain way. It is your choice.

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

Marriage is a test of how you unconditionally love and respect your spouse as you obey, honor, and please the Lord.

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

There is a discrepancy between who we want to be and see ourselves to be and how we actually sound in voice and writing. But with self-reflection and honesty, we can turn the corner and improve our communication. We need only evaluate what we are about to communicate.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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)

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

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

Through Jesus and Peter, God set forth His standard for living in the unconditional dimension: choose to be loving even when the other person is not; do what is right regardless of the treatment you receive. I believe this standard applies directly to marriage. A husband who speaks lovingly to his disrespectful wife will be rewarded; and a wife who speaks respectfully to her unloving, not-worthy-of-respect husband will be rewarded. Whether you are husband or wife, the reward is what can keep you going in the midst of the craziness: knowing that God commends you, knowing that you have found his favor for your words and actions.

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!)

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

You both forgive for one simple but profound reason: because you know Christ has forgiven you!

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

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?

Trusting and obeying God’s Word because we love and reverence God never, ever makes us a hypocrite! When the alarm goes off in the morning, we get up, even when we don’t feel like it getting up. Because we do what we don’t feel like doing, does that make us hypocrites? No, it’s a sign we are responsible people. Showing respectful behavior when we don’t “feel respectful” is evidence of maturity.

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.

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.

As a husband, if you can grasp that you don’t always have to solve your wife’s problems, you will take a giant step toward showing her empathy and understanding.

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

Words of Love or Respect must uplift your spouse, edifying- never manipulating him or her.

When a husband chooses to come across lovingly even though he feels disrespected, he can prevent the Crazy Cycle from spinning and possibly getting out of control.

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

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.

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.

Your spouse has a need that you don’t have. Are you going to say there is something seriously wrong with them or will you say “Viva la Difference”?

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

Always see your mate as an ally. Feedback is of little use if you see your spouse as an enemy. Giving and receiving constructive feedback is based on feelings of goodwill in both partners. Both of you need to remember that, even if you don’t always agree and even if you become irritated or angry, you are friends, and neither of you means to hurt the other.

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

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.

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

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

Unconditional respect is as powerful to him as unconditional love is to her.

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