Amor y Respeto - Cuaderno De Trabajo: Videoconferencia

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

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

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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

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.

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

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.

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

A most significant point of this book is this: If what we think is true, kind, necessary, and clear, we need to have the courage to hit send. This isn’t about refraining from speaking; this is about speaking.

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.

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

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

“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.“

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

Wives, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your husband not only back to you, but to God. Husbands, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your wife not only back to you, but to God. (1 Corinthians 7:16)

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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

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

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

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.

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

[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?”

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

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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.

Knowing my spouse will not be able to love or respect me perfectly, I commit to having a forgiving spirit so that I may never speak hatefully or contemptuously.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The more we are upset at something, the wiser it is to let twenty-four hours pass before responding.

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

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

There is a discrepancy between who we want to be and see ourselves to be and how we actually sound in voice and writing. But with self-reflection and honesty, we can turn the corner and improve our communication. We need only evaluate what we are about to communicate.

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.

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

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

When others do not respond to our communication, we need to look first at our communication style. Is the other person incapable of hearing what we have to say? Or are we abrupt, brusque, and curt?

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

Do you bow to the influence of Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

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

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

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

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.