Love & Respect in the Family

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.

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 play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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 strong and powerful as marriage bonds can become, our deepest dependency must be on the Lord, not another human being.

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.

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

If we subscribe to the belief that because we are equal we are the same, then we’re going to expect our spouse to respond the way we do.

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

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

Your spouse has a need that you don’t have. Are you going to say there is something seriously wrong with them or will you say “Viva la Difference”?

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Your spouse can have a need that you don’t have and that’s okay.

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.

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

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

We are either going to give in the darkness or we are going to give into the darkness.

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

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.

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.

Let the Lord change you, but don’t try to change each other.

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.

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

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)

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

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.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

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)

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.

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

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.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Fight like a loving man and a respectful woman. Fight fair.

If a husband is commanded to agape- love his wife, then she truly needs love.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Our research shows that couples who pray together are more apt to reap all kinds of benefits, including better and more frequent communication, going on “dates” more frequently and having sex more frequently.

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

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

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.

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.

[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?”

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

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.

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

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.

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

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

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

“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.“

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!

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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.

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

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.

His love blesses regardless of her respect; her respect blesses regardless of his love.

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.

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

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