Respectfully Yours - Leader's Kit

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.

In your marriage be the first to “seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:11)

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Here is the secret to marriage that every couple seeks and yet few find: Unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It’s the secret that will help you achieve a brand new level of intimacy.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

[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?”

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

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

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

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

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.

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)

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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.

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

Marital researchers agree that a huge percentage of communication problems between husband and wife are due not to what is said but to how it is said – the attitude and tone of voice.

God is not pink. God is not blue. God is purple. When two become one, they have the potential of displaying God’s attributes and character.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

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.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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.

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

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

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”?

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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

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

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

It is crucial for a husband and wife to see that neither one is wrong, but both of them are very different--in body function, outlook and perspective.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.