Love and Respect Wife + Logo Mug

[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.

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

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

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.

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.

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”?

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

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

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

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

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.

His love blesses regardless of her respect; her respect blesses regardless of his love.

Focus on the positive in the midst of the negative, and the Energizing Cycle will keep right on humming.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Before hitting send, ask yourself, "Have I listened carefully and understand the exact issue on the table?"

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

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

“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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

Most marriages will succeed when obeying the command to Love and Respect.

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

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

Unconditional love or respect is never wasted. Hang onto this promise: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

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

I had often asked God to compensate for my mistakes, but in return had I thought He would give me perfect children?

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

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

When sorting out how to slow down the Crazy Cycle, it helps to remember that men are commanded to love because they don’t love naturally, and on the other side, women are commanded to respect because they don’t respect naturally.

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

With a better understanding of God’s promises, you will be on your way to a renewed mind and a changed life.

The more we are upset at something, the wiser it is to let twenty-four hours pass before responding.

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

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.

It’s crucial to communicate with the right tone of voice and the right expression on your face.

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.

A strong woman of dignity puts on respect out of her love and reverence for Jesus Christ. She trusts that His word not only protects and empowers her, but also rewards her with incomprehensible eternal blessings.

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.”

It is so easy to draw wrong conclusions about a spouse’s character and motives due to an occasional flare-up or silly comment.

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

Clearly, in the marriage, in the family and in the household, when you speak words of blessing, you are speaking to the Lord, and for this you will be rewarded.

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!

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

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

We have discovered that as women motivate their man God’s way, men are energized to love them better. It doesn’t matter if your marriage is good or seems like there is no hope. We have seen God move in powerful ways even when things looked hopeless.

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.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marital researchers agree that a huge percentage of communication problems between husband and wife are due not to what is said but to how it is said – the attitude and tone of voice.

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

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

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

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

Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative with lots of love and respect in between.

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

Thank the Lord that in the very beginning He created them male and female – Blue and Pink. Ask Him for patience and ever-growing understanding of how men and women see and hear differently. “He created them male and female, and He blessed them.” (Genesis 5:2)

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

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.

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

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.

No matter what your struggle- criticism, constant conflict, sex, money, parenting, harsh words- learning to communicate the Love and Respect way can help you make crucial changes and build the kind of relationship that God blesses.

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.

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.

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

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

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

When others do not respond to our communication, we need to look first at our communication style. Is the other person incapable of hearing what we have to say? Or are we abrupt, brusque, and curt?

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