Before You Hit Send

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Words of Love and Respect must include thankfulness spoken to or about your spouse; don’t fixate on weaknesses and faults.

Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for Jesus Christ. God is using your spouse to bring you an eternal reward.

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

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

Since it is easy to focus on the negative, focus on your mate’s good qualities and express thanks with positive words of Love or 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.

To get offended is easy, but to forgive is within your power as you walk in His steps.

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)

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

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

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

Though the end can be worthy (to be loved and respected), when each uses unholy means (unloving and disrespectful words and actions), it will not achieve those ends. We must treat others as we expect them to treat us. To deny this makes us arrogant or fools, or both.

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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

A most significant point of this book is this: If what we think is true, kind, necessary, and clear, we need to have the courage to hit send. This isn’t about refraining from speaking; this is about speaking.

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.

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.

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

[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.

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

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

Being friendly to her man is one of the most effective things a woman can do to strengthen her marriage.

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

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

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.

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

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

I often stress that one of the greatest rewards any persevering spouse can have is being a good example and influence on the children in the family.

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?

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

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

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.

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)

When we speak before we think, we widen the chances the other person(s) will be notably hurt, frustrated, confused, angry, fearful, or offended by something we’ve communicated.

We are equal but we are not the same.

Your words reveal your heart.

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

If a husband loves his wife as he should, she will feel honored and respected. If a wife respects her husband as she should, he will feel loved and appreciated. It’s a win-win.

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.

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.

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

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

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

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

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

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.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

[Husbands] as the church places her burdens on Christ, so a woman needs to place her burdens on her husband. When she shares with you, don’t assume she is asking you to solve the problem. Ask your wife, “Do you want a solution or a listening ear?”

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

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

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

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.

A major step toward a happy marriage is accepting differences and working them out with love and respect.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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).

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

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

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

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