Amor y Respeto (Spanish Love & Respect Book)

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

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.

Unconditional respect is as powerful to him as unconditional love is to her.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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 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 affect you, but your spouse does not control you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

Optimism or pessimism? It is always a choice, no matter what your natural temperament.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Women give a report to build rapport. Men bond through shoulder-to-shoulder activities without talking.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.

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

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 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.

Always remember that Pink and Blue have different wiring, different preferences. Assume your spouse has goodwill toward you, no matter what. Both of you can be right, while being different.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

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

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.

“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.“

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

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

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

“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.

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

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)

Your husband knows you value his friendship when you tell him you like him and you show it (he knows you love him, but he often wonders if you really like him).

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Clarifying is what you do before you step on your mate’s air hose and deflate his or her spirit. For example, you are having a typical conversation, but you can tell there is a misunderstanding. One of you isn’t being clear or isn’t hearing correctly. Then and there you clarify the misunderstanding before your spouse’s spirit deflates. You lovingly or respectfully clarify matters so that your spouse will not feel unloved or disrespected. The reason you take pains to clarify a seemingly small matter is to prevent the situation from becoming a love and respect issue that needs decoding. Clarifying is what you do to stay off the Crazy Cycle and keep positive, energetic feelings flowing between the two of you, to keep yourselves on the Energizing Cycle.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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.

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.

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.

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.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

When you relinquish an offense, you need to send that offense somewhere. So follow Jesus’ example and release it to your heavenly Father.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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 have two ears and one mouth; use them proportionately.

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.

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

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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

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.

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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