Love & Respect in the Family

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

A parent needs to feel respected, especially during conflicts...A child need to feel loved, especially during disputes.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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).

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”?

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).

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.

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

[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?”

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.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

I had often asked God to compensate for my mistakes, but in return had I thought He would give me perfect children?

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)

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

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.

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

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.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

“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.“

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.

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

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?

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

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

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.

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.

Always try to look at your spouse the way Jesus does.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Clarifying is what you do before you step on your mate’s air hose and deflate his or her spirit. For example, you are having a typical conversation, but you can tell there is a misunderstanding. One of you isn’t being clear or isn’t hearing correctly. Then and there you clarify the misunderstanding before your spouse’s spirit deflates. You lovingly or respectfully clarify matters so that your spouse will not feel unloved or disrespected. The reason you take pains to clarify a seemingly small matter is to prevent the situation from becoming a love and respect issue that needs decoding. Clarifying is what you do to stay off the Crazy Cycle and keep positive, energetic feelings flowing between the two of you, to keep yourselves on the Energizing Cycle.

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

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

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

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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!

Before hitting send, ask yourself, "Have I listened carefully and understand the exact issue on the table?"

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Thank the Lord for all the trouble-free moments in which you and your spouse enjoy Him, each other, your family, your ministry and life as a whole. Ask Him for the strength to accept your measure of trouble, and the wisdom to deal with the annoyances and irritations by loving and respecting each other with new commitment. (You may also want to pray about troubles at work, at church, with the children…) “But those who marry will have trouble in this life” (1 Corinthians 7:28)

His love blesses regardless of her respect; her respect blesses regardless of his love.

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.

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.

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