Respectfully Yours - Study Guide (10 pack)

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

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

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

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.

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

When you come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

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

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

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

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.”

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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 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.

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.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

God rewards your obedience to love and respect, even if your spouse does not respond!

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

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

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

[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?”

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

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

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.

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

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

The key to motivating another person is meeting their deepest need, especially during conflict.

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

When parents genuinely trust and follow the Lord and His ways, their faith spills over onto the children.

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

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

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.

She’ll feel at peace with you when you let her vent your frustrations and hurts and don’t get angry and close her off.

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

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

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!

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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

Pink and Blue perceptions not only affect seeing, they affect hearing as well. Women hear with pink hearing aids and men hear with blue hearing aids. Even more important to understand as you and your spouse seek to gain better communication, you can hear the very same words, but each of you will hear different messages.

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

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.

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

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

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

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!)

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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)

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

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.

I have concluded that those of us in the church who believe we have the Truth are not using the whole truth. A crucial part of God’s Word has been completely ignored, or perhaps simply gone unnoticed, when it has been there right under our noses the whole time! Many Christian spouses know Ephesians 5:33 and can at least paraphrase it. The Apostle Paul tells husbands to love their wives as much as they love themselves, and wives are to respect their husbands. But is anyone really listening? Perhaps the first step to better communication between husband and wife is to hear what God’s Word clearly says. --Emerson

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

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

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)

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.

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?”

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

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?

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