Respectfully Yours - Participant Study Guide (Download)

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

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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)

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.

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

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!)

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

His love motivates her respect. Her respect motivates his love.

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

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

In your marriage be the first to “seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:11)

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

“With eyes of faith, envision Jesus standing just beyond the shoulder of your spouse and listening to every word you speak in every conversation, pleasant or tense. When you speak lovingly or respectfully to your spouse, you are speaking to Christ. Your spouse just happens to be there too.” This truth has sanctified the lips of many. Instead of giving their spouse a verbal whipping or choking on the idea of saying anything positive, now some spouses are motivated to speak words of unconditional love or respect.

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

Don’t label each other as bad because you differ on how you solve your troubles.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

We can all have moments of anger, but this does not mean we have to lose control and sin.

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

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.

Unconditional respect means we confront their wrongdoings respectfully. We do not become uncivil because they are. Who they fail to be does not determine who we will be.

Do you understand that God feels compassion for you, no matter what you have done or what your circumstances may be?

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

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.

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

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

Often both spouses have goodwill but are not deciphering each other’s code. She criticizes out of love, but he “hears” only disrespect. He distances himself to prevent feelings from escalating, which is the honorable thing to do, but she “sees” only his failure to be loving!

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

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)

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

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.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

How we react to a situation reveals more about us than about the other person.

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

[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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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)

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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.”

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

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.

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

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

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

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

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

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.