Love and Respect Husband and Wife + Logo Mug Set

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

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.

The Lord made women (Pink) and men (Blue) with differences, and He expects us to recognize and deal with those differences in a loving and respectful way.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

Don’t conclude that your spouse is wrong when he/she is seeking to do the right and righteous thing.

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

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

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

You may believe that the careless, unloving or disrespectful words you speak are because your spouse is causing you to speak this way, but Jesus says that it is coming out of your heart.

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.

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

Let the Lord change you, but don’t try to change each other.

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.

Often both spouses have goodwill but are not deciphering each other’s code. She criticizes out of love, but he “hears” only disrespect. He distances himself to prevent feelings from escalating, which is the honorable thing to do, but she “sees” only his failure to be loving!

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Men are solution oriented, they love to solve problems. They want to be helpful.

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

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

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.

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

This is the Rewarded Cycle: His love blesses regardless of her respect and her respect blesses regardless of his love.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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.

Christian maturity involves a lot of things, but surely it includes knowing how to process your anger.

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

A marriage relationship will be energized when couples learn how to motivate each other God’s way.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

When a husband chooses to do or say something loving, and that includes saying, ‘I’m sorry for coming across in an unloving way,’ he energizes his wife. When a wife decides to express herself respectfully, and that includes apologizing for her disrespectful attitude, she energizes her husband.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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)

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

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

We have to step back as Christ followers and ask, “Do I have false expectations that my relationship should be romantic 99% of the time?”

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

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

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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.

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.

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

When a wife feels unloved, it can be such a shock to her heart that she is oblivious to her disrespectful reactions toward her husband, though any man watching could see it plainly.

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

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

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

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

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

Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean the other person is offensive.

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.

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

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

Your position in Christ is what counts, not your less-than-perfect performance.

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.

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

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

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