Mother & Son Course Workbook (Download)

[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?”

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

When a wife insists that her husband earn her respect, she puts him in a lose-lose situation.

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.

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!

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

“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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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?”

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.

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

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.

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.

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)

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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)

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)

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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

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.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

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.

Here is the secret to marriage that every couple seeks and yet few find: Unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It’s the secret that will help you achieve a brand new level of intimacy.

Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for Jesus Christ. God is using your spouse to bring you an eternal reward.

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).

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

Your spouse can have a need that you don’t have and that’s okay.

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

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.

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

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

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.”

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

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)

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

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.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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.

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

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.

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.

If you are seeking positive change in your marriage, you will need to make a positive change in your attitude and actions.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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

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

Being friendly to her man is one of the most effective things a woman can do to strengthen her marriage.

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)

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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.

Husbands primarily want to hear ‘respect” talk during conflict. Wives primarily want to hear “love” talk during conflict.

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.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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.

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

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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!)

Both Judas and Peter denied Jesus Christ, but there is a huge difference between a Judas and a Peter.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

“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.“

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.