Building Blocks DVD Study - Couple's Kit

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

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. Love and Respect reveals why spouses react negatively to each other, and how they can deal with such conflict quickly, easily and biblically.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

As a husband, if you can grasp that you don’t always have to solve your wife’s problems, you will take a giant step toward showing her empathy and understanding.

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

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.

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

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).

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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.

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.

“With eyes of faith, envision Jesus standing just beyond the shoulder of your spouse and listening to every word you speak in every conversation, pleasant or tense. When you speak lovingly or respectfully to your spouse, you are speaking to Christ. Your spouse just happens to be there too.” This truth has sanctified the lips of many. Instead of giving their spouse a verbal whipping or choking on the idea of saying anything positive, now some spouses are motivated to speak words of unconditional love or respect.

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!

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.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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

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

[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.

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

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

I often stress that one of the greatest rewards any persevering spouse can have is being a good example and influence on the children in the family.

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

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

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

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

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

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. A wife can choose to be disrespectful or respectful. A husband can choose to be unloving or loving.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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)

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

“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.“

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