Motivating Your Man God's Way: Discover One Word that Energizes Him to Love

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.

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.

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

Mistakes can’t be undone, but they can be forgiven.

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

I often stress that one of the greatest rewards any persevering spouse can have is being a good example and influence on the children in the family.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!)

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trust God when the “why’s” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

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

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

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.

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”?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.”

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.

Words of Love and Respect must include thankfulness spoken to or about your spouse; don’t fixate on weaknesses and faults.

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

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.

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

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 are worth Jesus to the Father.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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.

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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 different vulnerabilities. We can pass judgment on one another all day long or we can say God made us different and that’s ok.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The difference between successful couples and unsuccessful couples is that successful ones keep getting up and dealing with the issues.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

His love motivates her respect. Her respect motivates 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.

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

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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?

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.

When others do not respond to our communication, we need to look first at our communication style. Is the other person incapable of hearing what we have to say? Or are we abrupt, brusque, and curt?

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

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.

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.

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

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.