14 Week Small Group Guide (Download)

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

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

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

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!

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.

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

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.

We must bring our identity in Christ to our parenting—we must not derive our identity from 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Always remember that Pink and Blue have different wiring, different preferences. Assume your spouse has goodwill toward you, no matter what. Both of you can be right, while being different.

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.

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

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

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

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

We fool ourselves into thinking the other person causes us to be the way we are. They really don’t! But if we lock into that idea, we become helpless, hopeless victims.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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)

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

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

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.

At the very bottom of things, in every case and in every conversation, you can do your marriage a huge favor by assuming she is seeking to feel loved or he is seeking to feel respected and give your spouse some grace!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Be friendly. Be friendly. Be friendly. Watch what happens.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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?”

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!

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”?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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)

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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.

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.

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

Whether visiting a prison, feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty a drink or speaking a word of love or respect, everything is to be done to and for Christ.

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

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

When a husband chooses to come across lovingly even though he feels disrespected, he can prevent the Crazy Cycle from spinning and possibly getting out of control.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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).

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.

[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.

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