Cuaderno de Amor y Respeto

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

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.

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)

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

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

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.

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

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

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

If a husband loves his wife as he should, she will feel honored and respected. If a wife respects her husband as she should, he will feel loved and appreciated. It’s a win-win.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unconditional love or respect is never wasted. Hang onto this promise: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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 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.

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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.

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.

Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean the other person is offensive.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

He will feel appreciated when you disagree with him only in private and honor his authority in front of the kids.

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.

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.

Most marriages will succeed when obeying the command to 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)

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

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.

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

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.

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

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.

“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.“

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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.

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

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

[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.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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.

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.

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

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 have two ears and one mouth; use them proportionately.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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