Love & Respect Live Conference Notebook

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

“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.“

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

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.

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)

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

When you come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Lord made women (Pink) and men (Blue) with differences, and He expects us to recognize and deal with those differences in a loving and respectful way.

[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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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)

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

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

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

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.

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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.

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).

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

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

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?”

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.

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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 with conflict.