Mother & Son

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.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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

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

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.

As mature men, we need to take leadership and put this out on the table. We must acknowledge our feelings- we need to feel respected. However, as we do this we must acknowledge our wife’s feelings- she needs to feel loved!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?”

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

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.

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.

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

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 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).

It’s crucial to communicate with the right tone of voice and the right expression on your face.

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

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

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

God is not pink. God is not blue. God is purple. When two become one, they have the potential of displaying God’s attributes and character.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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.

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.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

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

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

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

There is a discrepancy between who we want to be and see ourselves to be and how we actually sound in voice and writing. But with self-reflection and honesty, we can turn the corner and improve our communication. We need only evaluate what we are about to communicate.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 there is confusion, I try to refrain from attacking another for not listening carefully (which may not be the case). Instead, I take a run at communicating again, but more clearly.

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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)

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Do you believe that there is a God who really loves you and wants to help you?

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 a wife asks, “Do you love me?” She is not trying to put her husband on the spot. She is simply looking for reassurance.

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.”

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

No one can really practice Love and Respect unless he or she does it as unto Jesus Christ.

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

She’s not wrong for not being male. He is not wrong for not being female. When you put pink and blue together, you get purple, the color of royalty; the color of God. Together, a husband and wife reflect God’s image.

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.

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.

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.

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.

God is not trying to trick you or mess with you. Trust that He wants to reveal Himself to you just as much as He wants to reveal Himself to the world.

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

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.