Mother & Son

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)

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.

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.

Respect for the husband is just as important as love for the wife.

If you want your husband to express appreciation for your attempts to be respectful, you must speak thankfully when he tries to be loving.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Above all trust God when the “whys” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

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

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.

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

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.

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

She’s not wrong for not being male. He is not wrong for not being female. When you put pink and blue together, you get purple, the color of royalty; the color of God. Together, a husband and wife reflect God’s image.

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.

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.

To build a lasting legacy, use proven wisdom that you glean from the Lord.

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

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

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

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)

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

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.

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.

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

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

It’s so easy to dismiss our spouse as childish because we don’t have the same vulnerabilities they do.

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.

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

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

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).

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

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

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

Don’t conclude that your spouse is wrong when he/she is seeking to do the right and righteous thing.

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.

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

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.

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)

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

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

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

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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

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.

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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.

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.

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

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.

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

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

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

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”?

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for Jesus Christ. God is using your spouse to bring you an eternal reward.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

“With eyes of faith, envision Jesus standing just beyond the shoulder of your spouse and listening to every word you speak in every conversation, pleasant or tense. When you speak lovingly or respectfully to your spouse, you are speaking to Christ. Your spouse just happens to be there too.” This truth has sanctified the lips of many. Instead of giving their spouse a verbal whipping or choking on the idea of saying anything positive, now some spouses are motivated to speak words of unconditional love or respect.

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

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

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