Love & Respect in the Family

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

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.

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

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)

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

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

[Husbands] the most powerful weapons you have are your ears. Just listen to your wife, and she is much more likely to feel understood.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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

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.

If you want your wife to express appreciation for your attempts to be loving, you must use thankful words when she tries to speak or act respectfully.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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.

[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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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)

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

The moment we cry to Him for help, He is already pleased. He gives us strength to love our children.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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!

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.

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!)

Unconditional love or respect is never wasted. Hang onto this promise: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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

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

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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 asks, “Do you love me?” She is not trying to put her husband on the spot. She is simply looking for reassurance.

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

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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

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

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

Could you be facing a crisis in faith more than a crisis in your marriage?

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.

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)

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

You both forgive for one simple but profound reason: because you know Christ has forgiven you!

Avoid like the plague trying to punish each other as a means of “motivation.” Christ-followers instinctively know that this destroys any opportunity to act out of reverence for Christ. In all marital issues, love and reverence for Christ must be our primary motivation.

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

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

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

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

A parent needs to feel respected, especially during conflicts...A child need to feel loved, especially during disputes.

You must distinguish between “I can’t” and “I won’t.”

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

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

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

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

You have two ears and one mouth; use them proportionately.

Your words reveal your heart.