The Love & Respect Experience (Audiobook)

Christian maturity involves a lot of things, but surely it includes knowing how to process your anger.

We are equal but we are not the same.

Women give a report to build rapport. Men bond through shoulder-to-shoulder activities without talking.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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.

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

Will we decide how we see God based on our circumstances, or will we see our circumstances in light of how we view God?

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)

“Living happily ever after” means knowing how to deal with the imperfect parts of life.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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?”

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

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.

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

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)

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

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

To build a lasting legacy, use proven wisdom that you glean from the Lord.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

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

[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.

Your wife feels you are open with her when you discuss financial concerns, possible job changes or ideas for your future.

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.

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).

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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.

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.

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

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”?

Each of you must focus on what God is calling you to do toward your spouse. Do not focus on what you think God is calling your spouse to do toward you.

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

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.”

It is so easy to draw wrong conclusions about a spouse’s character and motives due to an occasional flare-up or silly comment.

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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 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!)

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

One thing to remember in this culture is if we say something complimentary towards one gender, we aren’t saying something against the other.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

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.

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.

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.

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

His love motivates her respect. Her respect motivates his 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.

A most significant point of this book is this: If what we think is true, kind, necessary, and clear, we need to have the courage to hit send. This isn’t about refraining from speaking; this is about speaking.

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

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!

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.

Respect for the husband is just as important as love for the wife.

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.

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

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.

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

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