Love and Respect for a Lifetime

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

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.

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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.

“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.

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

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

Life is too short to fuss and fret over trivial irritations.

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.

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

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

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

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

Unconditional respect means we confront their wrongdoings respectfully. We do not become uncivil because they are. Who they fail to be does not determine who we will be.

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

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.

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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?

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).

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

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

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.

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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

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

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.

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

Wives, to energize your husband do an activity with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, without talking.

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?”

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

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

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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

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

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

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

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).

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Wives, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your husband not only back to you, but to God. Husbands, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your wife not only back to you, but to God. (1 Corinthians 7:16)

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Parenting is a faith venture. As we parent “unto Christ” we reap God’s reward, “knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord” (Eph. 6:8 NKJV)

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!)

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Knowing my spouse will not be able to love or respect me perfectly, I commit to having a forgiving spirit so that I may never speak hatefully or contemptuously.

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