The Language of Love & Respect Workbook

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

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

[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.

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

Share what God is saying to your heart, not what you think He needs to say to your mate.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Positive changes flood a relationship immediately when both husband and wife cancel the blame game!

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 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.

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.

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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)

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

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)

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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

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

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!)

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.

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

“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.“

When a husband chooses to come across lovingly even though he feels disrespected, he can prevent the Crazy Cycle from spinning and possibly getting out of control.

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

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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!

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

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.

Above all trust God when the “whys” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Always try to look at your spouse the way Jesus does.

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

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

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

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

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.

You can be right in the argument, but wrong in your approach.

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.

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

A man has a natural, inborn desire to go out and “conquer” the challenges of his world – to work and achieve.

Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for Jesus Christ. God is using your spouse to bring you an eternal reward.

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

You speak lovingly or respectfully no matter how your spouse may speak to you in return. Your spouse is not the reason--good or bad--why you speak unconditional words of love or respect. God is the reason, and as you depend on Him, you will become increasingly able to speak lovingly and respectfully to your spouse.

Do you believe that there is a God who really loves you and wants to help you?

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

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?

God is good and wants what is best for us.

Money squabbles don’t undermine love and respect; they simply reveal unloving and disrespectful attitudes, which are the real reason why a marriage can start to wobble on the Crazy Cycle.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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