Respectfully Yours - Leader's Guide

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 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.

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

Mutual submission is the only way to live fairly together with mutual authority.

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.

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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.

Do not live by the standards of Hollywood; trust what God says in His Holy Word.

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.

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

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

When your wife comes to talk to you, listen to her. Realize she is coming to you because you matter more to her than anyone else. She has certain emotional needs and only you can meet them. Sometimes she may say things that don’t make sense to you and she is apt to misspeak and exaggerate when she is upset, but don’t put her down. Instead, listen to her heart. Give her a chance to express her concerns and, as she does so, don’t try to fix her. Don’t give her your solutions unless she asks for them.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

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”?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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.

The more we are upset at something, the wiser it is to let twenty-four hours pass before responding.

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

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

A woman needs love like she needs air to breathe. A man needs respect like he needs air to breathe.

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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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.

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

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

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

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).

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).

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

“Living happily ever after” means knowing how to deal with the imperfect parts of life.

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

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

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

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?

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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.

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

If we subscribe to the belief that because we are equal we are the same, then we’re going to expect our spouse to respond the way we do.

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

A marriage relationship will be energized when couples learn how to motivate each other God’s way.

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

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.

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.

Respect for the husband is just as important as love for the wife.

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

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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

[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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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