Love & Respect Workbook

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Your wife feels you are open with her when you discuss financial concerns, possible job changes or ideas for your future.

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

When you love or respect unconditionally regardless of the outcome, you are following God and His will for you.

“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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

You both forgive for one simple but profound reason: because you know Christ has forgiven you!

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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.

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.

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

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

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. A wife can choose to be disrespectful or respectful. A husband can choose to be unloving or loving.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I encourage every husband and wife to commit to the Jesus Way of Talking. Instead of allowing the stress of the situation to control you, you can say to yourself, “Because I love the Lord and I know that He rewards every good word, I am going to be truthful even if my spouse is not. I will also be uplifting, forgiving, thankful and scriptural in my speech because my ultimate goal is to please the Lord. Whatever my spouse’s weaknesses or bad habits might be, I will not let them cause me to sin with my lips.”

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

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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.

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.

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

She’ll feel at peace with you when you let her vent your frustrations and hurts and don’t get angry and close her off.

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.

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

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

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

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).

You’re the only person in the world who can meet your spouse’s deepest need for love and respect. After all, you alone are married to your spouse.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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.

Thank the Lord that in the very beginning He created them male and female – Blue and Pink. Ask Him for patience and ever-growing understanding of how men and women see and hear differently. “He created them male and female, and He blessed them.” (Genesis 5:2)

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

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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

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 a part of the solution, not part of the problem.

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

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

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.