Love & Respect in the Family

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

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

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

Be friendly. Be friendly. Be friendly. Watch what happens.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Thank the Lord for all the trouble-free moments in which you and your spouse enjoy Him, each other, your family, your ministry and life as a whole. Ask Him for the strength to accept your measure of trouble, and the wisdom to deal with the annoyances and irritations by loving and respecting each other with new commitment. (You may also want to pray about troubles at work, at church, with the children…) “But those who marry will have trouble in this life” (1 Corinthians 7:28)

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.”

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 husband chooses to do or say something loving, and that includes saying, ‘I’m sorry for coming across in an unloving way,’ he energizes his wife. When a wife decides to express herself respectfully, and that includes apologizing for her disrespectful attitude, she energizes her husband.

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

Knowing my spouse will not be able to love or respect me perfectly, I commit to having a forgiving spirit so that I may never speak hatefully or contemptuously.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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.

There is a discrepancy between who we want to be and see ourselves to be and how we actually sound in voice and writing. But with self-reflection and honesty, we can turn the corner and improve our communication. We need only evaluate what we are about to communicate.

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

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 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.

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

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!)

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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)

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

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

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

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

Don’t pressure yourself with perfection. We are going to fail. A righteous man falls 7 times but gets back up.

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

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

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.

Stay the course regardless of the child’s respect and obedience. This is the Family Rewarded Cycle: a parents love unto Christ regardless of the child.

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

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

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

The difference between successful couples and unsuccessful couples is that successful ones keep getting up and dealing with the issues.

Both Judas and Peter denied Jesus Christ, but there is a huge difference between a Judas and a Peter.

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.

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.

Your position in Christ is what counts, not your less-than-perfect performance.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

“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.“

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

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

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

If a husband is commanded to agape- love his wife, then she truly needs love.

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.

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

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

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

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