The Language of Love & Respect

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

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

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

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

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)

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.

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.

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.”

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

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

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

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

We must bring our identity in Christ to our parenting—we must not derive our identity from our children.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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)

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.

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

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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.

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

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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.

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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 a husband chooses to be a peacemaker--taking the needs and concerns of his wife totally into account during any kind of argument or conflict--his wife will be motivated in turn to respond to his authority during stalemates.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Your hunger for God can create an appetite in your children.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

[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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

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.

One thing to remember in this culture is if we say something complimentary towards one gender, we aren’t saying something against the other.

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.

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

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.

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.

A major step toward a happy marriage is accepting differences and working them out with love and respect.

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.

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

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

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)

Fight like a loving man and a respectful woman. Fight fair.

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

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

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

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.