The Illumination Project

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.

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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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).

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

Your marriage is really a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for your Lord.

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.

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

Optimism or pessimism? It is always a choice, no matter what your natural temperament.

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

Research shows that 70% of the couples who were extremely unhappy in their marriage, but hung in there and worked through the tough time, identified themselves as being very happy five years later.

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

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

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

When Jesus said “turn the other cheek,” He wasn’t saying to be passive wimps. He was teaching that physically people can control you but if you turn and give the other cheek, suddenly you’re in control and you’re making the choices.

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

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

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.

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.

[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.

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)

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

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?

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

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.

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

Just because you may feel unloved or disrespected does not mean your spouse is sending that message.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

In the ultimate sense, your marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship to Jesus Christ.

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

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

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).

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

It’s crucial to communicate with the right tone of voice and the right expression on your face.

Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Your husband knows you appreciate his desire to protect and provide when you praise his commitment to provide for you. You empathize when he reveals his male mindset about position, status, or rank at work.

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)

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

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

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 you relinquish an offense, you need to send that offense somewhere. So follow Jesus’ example and release it to your heavenly Father.

It is crucial for a husband and wife to see that neither one is wrong, but both of them are very different--in body function, outlook and perspective.

Your words reveal your heart.

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.

[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?”

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

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.

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.

“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.

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.