Before You Hit Send

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Your husband knows you appreciate his desire to protect and provide when you praise his commitment to provide for you. You empathize when he reveals his male mindset about position, status, or rank at work.

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

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.

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

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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 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).

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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)

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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!)

When the wife flatly says her husband will have to earn her respect before she gives him any, she leaves the husband in a lose-lose situation. Now he is responsible for both love and respect in the relationship. He must unconditionally love his wife and earn her respect.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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

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

If we subscribe to the belief that because we are equal we are the same, then we’re going to expect our spouse to respond the way we do.

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.

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.

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

Marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and your reverence for Jesus Christ.

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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.

Each of you must focus on what God is calling you to do toward your spouse. Do not focus on what you think God is calling your spouse to do toward you.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

“Living happily ever after” means knowing how to deal with the imperfect parts of life.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

When you come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

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.

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?

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.

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

There is a plan to parent God’s way, even when our children may seek to go their own way at time. The secret is to follow this plan regardless. When you do, I believe you succeed in His eyes.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

“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.“

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