Love & Respect in the Family

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Share what God is saying to your heart, not what you think He needs to say to your mate.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Your words reveal your heart.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

A woman needs love like she needs air to breathe. A man needs respect like he needs air to breathe.

When parents genuinely trust and follow the Lord and His ways, their faith spills over onto the children.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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)

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

We can communicate the truth in the best of manners, but the person may be so insecure he or she can only react and attack like a wounded bear.

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

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?

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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?”

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Thank God for His forgiveness of your mistakes. In trying to be a loving man or a respectful woman, we blow it. Owning up to mistakes is never easy, but it is always the way to move forward. Take good care not to accuse your spouse of mistakes as you pray. Also, pray about any forgiving to be done in the family, any forgiveness that needs to be asked. Children may need forgiveness (and what about Mom and Dad?). “There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

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

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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

Wives, to energize your husband do an activity with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, without talking.

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.

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.

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)

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

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.

We are equal but we are not the same.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Husbands primarily want to hear ‘respect” talk during conflict. Wives primarily want to hear “love” talk during conflict.

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

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.”

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.

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

To get offended is easy, but to forgive is within your power as you walk in His steps.

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.