Cuaderno de Amor y Respeto

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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).

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.

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)

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

We blame people for the bad things we do, but take credit for the good things we do.

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

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

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

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.

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)

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

Your wife feels you are open with her when you discuss financial concerns, possible job changes or ideas for your future.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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?”

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

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!)

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

There is power and freedom that comes in understanding that no one can cause you to react in a certain way. It is your choice.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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”?

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

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

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.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

Before hitting send, ask yourself, "Have I listened carefully and understand the exact issue on the table?"

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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.

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

If you want your wife to express appreciation for your attempts to be loving, you must use thankful words when she tries to speak or act respectfully.

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

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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

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

We are either going to give in the darkness or we are going to give into the darkness.

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

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)

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

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

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

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?

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.

When a husband chooses to come across lovingly even though he feels disrespected, he can prevent the Crazy Cycle from spinning and possibly getting out of control.

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

Be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.

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

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

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