Love & Respect Book

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

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

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.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Always remember that Pink and Blue have different wiring, different preferences. Assume your spouse has goodwill toward you, no matter what. Both of you can be right, while being different.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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

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.

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.

“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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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)

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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).

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.

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

Trusting and obeying God’s Word because we love and reverence God never, ever makes us a hypocrite! When the alarm goes off in the morning, we get up, even when we don’t feel like it getting up. Because we do what we don’t feel like doing, does that make us hypocrites? No, it’s a sign we are responsible people. Showing respectful behavior when we don’t “feel respectful” is evidence of maturity.

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.

Thank the Lord for all the trouble-free moments in which you and your spouse enjoy Him, each other, your family, your ministry and life as a whole. Ask Him for the strength to accept your measure of trouble, and the wisdom to deal with the annoyances and irritations by loving and respecting each other with new commitment. (You may also want to pray about troubles at work, at church, with the children…) “But those who marry will have trouble in this life” (1 Corinthians 7:28)

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

Your position in Christ is what counts, not your less-than-perfect performance.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

To stay the course in speaking words of Love and Respect, keep your heart in Scripture, trusting in and talking about His promises to help you.

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?”

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.

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

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.

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

Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Thank the Lord that in the very beginning He created them male and female – Blue and Pink. Ask Him for patience and ever-growing understanding of how men and women see and hear differently. “He created them male and female, and He blessed them.” (Genesis 5:2)

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

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

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.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

Your spouse deserves the truth from you. Do your best to tell it with love and respect.

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

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

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

Positive changes flood a relationship immediately when both husband and wife cancel the blame game!

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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!)

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.