Respectfully Yours - Leader's Guide (Download)

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.

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

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

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

To stay the course in speaking words of Love and Respect, keep your heart in Scripture, trusting in and talking about His promises to help you.

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.

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”?

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

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

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

We might say that every negative action in the family has an equal and opposite negative reaction.

You can be right in the argument, but wrong in your approach.

Suppressing negative feelings is not loving, respectful or very wise. Speak up tactfully.

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).

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

When we feel crippling discouragement by the sinful choices and outcomes of our kids, we must not let this permanently deter us from parenting God’s way.

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

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

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

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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.

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.

The moment we cry to Him for help, He is already pleased. He gives us strength to love our children.

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

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?”

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.

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.

When sorting out how to slow down the Crazy Cycle, it helps to remember that men are commanded to love because they don’t love naturally, and on the other side, women are commanded to respect because they don’t respect naturally.

Self-interest should never come ahead of your spouse’s interests.

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!

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.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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.

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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)

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.

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

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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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).

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

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.”

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

Unconditional respect is as powerful to him as unconditional love is to her.

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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)

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

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

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

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

We all need love and respect equally. But, during conflict our felt needs are as different as pink is from blue.

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!)

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.