Before You Hit Send

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.

[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.

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

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.

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.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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.

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)

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.

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

[Husbands] as the church places her burdens on Christ, so a woman needs to place her burdens on her husband. When she shares with you, don’t assume she is asking you to solve the problem. Ask your wife, “Do you want a solution or a listening ear?”

Research and experience prove that men and women see and hear differently. Recognizing these differences and adjusting to them is absolutely necessary for reaching mutual understanding and better communication.

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

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

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

He will feel appreciated when you recognize his problem-solving approach as his male brand of empathy.

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

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.

Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.

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

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 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.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

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

A parent needs to feel respected, especially during conflicts...A child need to feel loved, especially during disputes.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Trusting and obeying God’s Word because we love and reverence God never, ever makes us a hypocrite! When the alarm goes off in the morning, we get up, even when we don’t feel like it getting up. Because we do what we don’t feel like doing, does that make us hypocrites? No, it’s a sign we are responsible people. Showing respectful behavior when we don’t “feel respectful” is evidence of maturity.

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)

Marriage is a test of how you unconditionally love and respect your spouse as you obey, honor, and please the Lord.

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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

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)

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!

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

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

Words of Love and Respect must include thankfulness spoken to or about your spouse; don’t fixate on weaknesses and faults.

Refuse to let evil turn you into a contemptuous and hateful person.

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

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.”

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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.

Your words reveal your heart.

We can all have moments of anger, but this does not mean we have to lose control and sin.

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

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

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

The heart of my communication means the other person cannot get my heart to be unkind, unloving, or disrespectful. Instead, I have made a decision about who I will be independent of the other person. I won’t blame my unkindness on someone else.

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.

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

We have discovered that as women motivate their man God’s way, men are energized to love them better. It doesn’t matter if your marriage is good or seems like there is no hope. We have seen God move in powerful ways even when things looked hopeless.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Always see your mate as an ally. Feedback is of little use if you see your spouse as an enemy. Giving and receiving constructive feedback is based on feelings of goodwill in both partners. Both of you need to remember that, even if you don’t always agree and even if you become irritated or angry, you are friends, and neither of you means to hurt the other.

Whether visiting a prison, feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty a drink or speaking a word of love or respect, everything is to be done to and for Christ.

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

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?”

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.

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.

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

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

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