Respectfully Yours - Participant Study Guide

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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)

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

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.

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

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.

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)

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

Being a person who communicates what is true frequently demands tact, and at times it can feel like sidestepping land mines. It takes work to be both truthful and tactful.

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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?”

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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, it is especially hard to love his wife. When a wife feels unloved, it is especially hard to respect her husband.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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

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

Avoid like the plague trying to punish each other as a means of “motivation.” Christ-followers instinctively know that this destroys any opportunity to act out of reverence for Christ. In all marital issues, love and reverence for Christ must be our primary motivation.

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

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

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

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!)

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.

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.

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

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

It’s hard to realize that we would never act around our business associates the way we act around our spouse.

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

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.”

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 a wife asks, “Do you love me?” She is not trying to put her husband on the spot. She is simply looking for reassurance.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

“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.“

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

Holding back your love or respect will just keep the Crazy Cycle spinning away, but being mature and making the first move could slow it down.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Parenting is a faith venture. As we parent “unto Christ” we reap God’s reward, “knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord” (Eph. 6:8 NKJV)

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

Thank God for joining you together and for allowing you to trust Him to help you, whatever the issue. God is there for you and expects you to look to Him to keep you together as a team, so ask Him for His help in the smallest of concerns. “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (Matthew 19:6)

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)

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

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