The Love & Respect Experience (Audiobook)

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)

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)

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

Husbands, even Jesus Himself was asked by a woman, “Do you not care?” (Luke 10:40) When your wife accuses you of not caring, decode her deeper meaning.

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.

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)

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

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 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.

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.

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.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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”?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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!)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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

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

Whose voice are you listening to: Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

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)

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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!

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

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

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?”

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

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

“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.

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

Each of you must focus on what God is calling you to do toward your spouse. Do not focus on what you think God is calling your spouse to do toward you.

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

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.

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.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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

She’s not wrong for not being male. He is not wrong for not being female. When you put pink and blue together, you get purple, the color of royalty; the color of God. Together, a husband and wife reflect God’s image.

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

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.

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

No matter what your struggle- criticism, constant conflict, sex, money, parenting, harsh words- learning to communicate the Love and Respect way can help you make crucial changes and build the kind of relationship that God blesses.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

When you’re truly Christ-centered, instead of child-centered, you will be a more effective parent in the long run.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

Unconditional respect, like unconditional love, is all about how one sounds (tone of voice and word choice) and appears (facial expressions and physical actions).

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

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

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

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

Husbands, to energize your wife give her face-to-face time, allowing her to talk and share her feelings.

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

When we feel crippling discouragement by the sinful choices and outcomes of our kids, we must not let this permanently deter us from parenting God’s way.

A marriage relationship will be energized when couples learn how to motivate each other God’s way.

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.