Love & Respect in the Family

The woman absolutely needs love, and the man absolutely needs respect. It’s as simple- and as difficult- as that.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

[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?”

There is power and freedom that comes in understanding that no one can cause you to react in a certain way. It is your choice.

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

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

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

Getting married reveals, usually sooner than later, an incontestable fact: your spouse cannot possibly meet all your needs and desires

When we speak before we think, we widen the chances the other person(s) will be notably hurt, frustrated, confused, angry, fearful, or offended by something we’ve communicated.

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.

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

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

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

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.”

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.

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

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

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.

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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.

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

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

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!

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).

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.

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

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

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

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.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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’s true that women have intuition and that men should listen to them. It’s also true that women have blind spots and need the insight of their husbands.

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

Pink and Blue perceptions not only affect seeing, they affect hearing as well. Women hear with pink hearing aids and men hear with blue hearing aids. Even more important to understand as you and your spouse seek to gain better communication, you can hear the very same words, but each of you will hear different messages.

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

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.

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

God rewards your obedience to love and respect, even if your spouse does not respond!

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

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.

Before hitting send, ask yourself, "Have I listened carefully and understand the exact issue on the table?"

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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)

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

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

If you are seeking positive change in your marriage, you will need to make a positive change in your attitude and actions.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

God’s commands are not burdensome, but are given to us to spare us from more pain. Why would God command you to do something that doesn’t work?

Husbands, to energize your wife give her face-to-face time, allowing her to talk and share her feelings.

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

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