Love & Respect in the Family

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

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

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

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.

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 marriage relationship will be energized when couples learn how to motivate each other 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.

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

Your spouse can affect you, but your spouse does not control you.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Be friendly. Be friendly. Be friendly. Watch what happens.

We are equal but we are not the same.

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.

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

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 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?

“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.“

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

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.

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.

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

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.

At the very bottom of things, in every case and in every conversation, you can do your marriage a huge favor by assuming she is seeking to feel loved or he is seeking to feel respected and give your spouse some grace!

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.

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

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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

The more we are upset at something, the wiser it is to let twenty-four hours pass before responding.

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.

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

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

Words of Love or Respect must uplift your spouse, edifying- never manipulating him or her.

Always see your mate as an ally. Feedback is of little use if you see your spouse as an enemy. Giving and receiving constructive feedback is based on feelings of goodwill in both partners. Both of you need to remember that, even if you don’t always agree and even if you become irritated or angry, you are friends, and neither of you means to hurt the other.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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!

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.

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.

[Husbands] as the church places her burdens on Christ, so a woman needs to place her burdens on her husband. When she shares with you, don’t assume she is asking you to solve the problem. Ask your wife, “Do you want a solution or a listening ear?”

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 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 you come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

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!)

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

There is a plan to parent God’s way, even when our children may seek to go their own way at time. The secret is to follow this plan regardless. When you do, I believe you succeed in His eyes.

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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.

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

When your wife comes to talk to you, listen to her. Realize she is coming to you because you matter more to her than anyone else. She has certain emotional needs and only you can meet them. Sometimes she may say things that don’t make sense to you and she is apt to misspeak and exaggerate when she is upset, but don’t put her down. Instead, listen to her heart. Give her a chance to express her concerns and, as she does so, don’t try to fix her. Don’t give her your solutions unless she asks for them.

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.

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

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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)