The Illumination Project

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

His love blesses regardless of her respect; her respect blesses regardless of his love.

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

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

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

God is not trying to trick you or mess with you. Trust that He wants to reveal Himself to you just as much as He wants to reveal Himself to the world.

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

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.

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.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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)

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.

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

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 seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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

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

“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.

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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.”

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

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!

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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”?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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] the most powerful weapons you have are your ears. Just listen to your wife, and she is much more likely to feel understood.

Your words reveal your heart.

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

As you pray together, you will truly learn to love and respect together.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

A woman needs love like she needs air to breathe. A man needs respect like he needs air to breathe.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

Let the Lord change you, but don’t try to change each other.

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?”