Respectfully Yours - Participant Study Guide (Download)

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.

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

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).

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

Your spouse may meet many of your needs, but your deepest dependency should be on your Lord.

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

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.

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)

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for Jesus Christ. God is using your spouse to bring you an eternal reward.

Do you bow to the influence of Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

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

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

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

Holding back your love or respect will just keep the Crazy Cycle spinning away, but being mature and making the first move could slow it down.

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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!)

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

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

Do you understand that God feels compassion for you, no matter what you have done or what your circumstances may be?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

God’s commands are not burdensome, but are given to us to spare us from more pain. Why would God command you to do something that doesn’t work?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Wives, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your husband not only back to you, but to God. Husbands, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your wife not only back to you, but to God. (1 Corinthians 7:16)

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.

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

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.

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.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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.

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

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.

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

[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.

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.

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

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

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.

Mutual understanding, not communication, is the key to a healthy marriage relationship.

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.

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.

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).

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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”?

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