Before You Hit Send

Every day we have the potential of both verbal and written blunders. It makes no difference if we are talking to our spouse, to a stranger over a meat counter, chatting on a cell phone with our mother, or sending an e-mail to a coworker; we can and do miscommunicate and people can and do get the wrong idea. When we don't pause long enough to think before speaking or writing, it commonly yields a misunderstanding and leads to a clash. We end up being the person who said, “You know that sphere of the brain that stops you from saying something that you shouldn't? Well, I don’t have one of those.”

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What You Will Learn

  • Discover the power of thoughtful communication with "Before You Hit Send"
  • Explore the consequences of impulsive communication in the age of social media
  • Learn how to prevent misunderstandings and clashes by asking four key questions before speaking or writing
  • Gain insights into the importance of truth, kindness, necessity, and clarity in your communication
  • Embark on a journey of self-reflection and personal growth to understand your communication tendencies
  • Unlock the tools and strategies to communicate wisely and foster understanding in your relationships
  • Start thinking before you speak and avoid communication disasters with "Before You Hit Send"
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Before You Hit Send

Preventing Headache and Heartache

Mastering Thoughtful Communication

Every day we have the potential of both verbal and written blunders. It makes no difference if we are talking to a stranger over a meat counter, chatting on a cell phone with our mother, or sending an e-mail to a coworker; we can and do miscommunicate and people can and do get the wrong idea. When we don't pause long enough to think before speaking or writing, it commonly yields a misunderstanding and leads to a clash. We end up being the person who said, “You know that sphere of the brain that stops you from saying something that you shouldn't? Well, I don’t have one of those.”

Unlocking Effective Communication

This book is about preventing that misunderstanding and allowing for understanding. Said another way, preempting people from getting the wrong idea and enabling them to get the right idea! We all need work in this area in far more ways than just glancing through a checklist.

From external examples to internal turmoil, Before You Hit Send is about the four things we must think through before communicating. In all things we wish to say or write, we would be wise to ask ourselves,

  • Is it true?
  • Is it kind?
  • Is it necessary?
  • Is it clear?

When we ask and answer these four questions honestly, we will be thinking wisely before we speak. But to explore this fully, we need to find out a whole lot more about ourselves and uncover why we consciously and subconsciously get into these communication disasters to begin with. You may be surprised what you discover about yourself.  Shall we begin?

Get to know...

Emerson and Sarah Eggerichs

Dr. Emerson Eggerichs is an internationally known public speaker on the topic of male-female relationships. Based on over three decades of pastoring, counseling and study of biblical and scientific research, Dr. Eggerichs and his wife Sarah developed the Love and Respect Conference which they present to live audiences around the country.

About Love & Respect
Portrait of Emerson and Sarah Eggerichs

Product Quotes

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

Love & Respect Podcast

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.

Love & Respect for a Lifetime

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).

Love & Respect for a Lifetime

[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.

Respectfully Yours

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

The Love and Respect Experience

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

Love & Respect Podcast

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

Building Blocks

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.

Love & Respect

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.

Love & Respect

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

Love & Respect

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.

Respectfully Yours

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.

The Language of Love & Respect Book

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

The Love and Respect Experience

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.

The Language of Love & Respect Book

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

Before You Hit Send

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).

The Language of Love & Respect Book

We are equal but we are not the same.

Building Blocks

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

The Language of Love & Respect Book

Your words reveal your heart.

The Love and Respect Experience

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.

Building Blocks

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

Respectfully Yours

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.

Love & Respect for a Lifetime

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

Respectfully Yours

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

Building Blocks

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

Building Blocks

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

Love & Respect for a Lifetime

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.

Before You Hit Send

Do you understand that God feels compassion for you, no matter what you have done or what your circumstances may be?

Respectfully Yours

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

Love & Respect

Unconditional respect means we confront their wrongdoings respectfully. We do not become uncivil because they are. Who they fail to be does not determine who we will be.

Before You Hit Send

You may believe that the careless, unloving or disrespectful words you speak are because your spouse is causing you to speak this way, but Jesus says that it is coming out of your heart.

Building Blocks

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

The Love and Respect Experience

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

Love & Respect Podcast

When a husband feels disrespected, it is especially hard to love his wife. When a wife feels unloved, it is especially hard to respect her husband.

Love & Respect

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.

Love & Respect for a Lifetime

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

The Language of Love & Respect Book

When Jesus said “turn the other cheek,” He wasn’t saying to be passive wimps. He was teaching that physically people can control you but if you turn and give the other cheek, suddenly you’re in control and you’re making the choices.

Building Blocks

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.

Before You Hit Send

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

Respectfully Yours

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

The Love and Respect Experience

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

Love & Respect for a Lifetime

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

The Illumination Project (Journal)

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.

The Language of Love & Respect Book

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.

Before You Hit Send

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

Love & Respect in the Family

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

Love & Respect Podcast

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.

Love & Respect for a Lifetime

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.

Love & Respect

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.

Respectfully Yours

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

The Language of Love & Respect Book

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

The Language of Love & Respect

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

Respectfully Yours

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.

Love & Respect for a Lifetime

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.

The Love and Respect Experience

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.

Love & Respect for a Lifetime

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

Love & Respect Podcast

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 & Respect for a Lifetime

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

The Love and Respect Experience

Your position in Christ is what counts, not your less-than-perfect performance.

The Love and Respect Experience

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.

The Love and Respect Experience

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.

Love & Respect for a Lifetime

To not forgive is to shoot yourself in the foot and put extra gas in the Crazy Cycle.

The Love and Respect Experience

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

Before You Hit Send

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

The Love and Respect Experience

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

Love & Respect

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

Love & Respect

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.

The Language of Love & Respect Book

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

The Love and Respect Experience

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.

Before You Hit Send

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

Respectfully Yours

So I encourage every husband and wife to commit to the Jesus Way of Talking. Instead of allowing the stress of the situation to control you, you can say to yourself, “Because I love the Lord and I know that He rewards every good word, I am going to be truthful even if my spouse is not. I will also be uplifting, forgiving, thankful and scriptural in my speech because my ultimate goal is to please the Lord. Whatever my spouse’s weaknesses or bad habits might be, I will not let them cause me to sin with my lips.”

The Language of Love & Respect Book

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.

Love & Respect Book

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.

Love & Respect for a Lifetime

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.

The Language of Love & Respect Book

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

Building Blocks

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

The Love and Respect Experience

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

Before You Hit Send

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)

The Language of Love & Respect Book

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.

The Illumination Project (Journal)

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.

Building Blocks

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

The Love and Respect Experience

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

The Illumination Project (Journal)

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

Before You Hit Send

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.

Before You Hit Send

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.

The Language of Love & Respect Book

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

The Illumination Project (Journal)

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

Building Blocks

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

Love & Respect

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

Respectfully Yours

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

Love & Respect for a Lifetime

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

The Language of Love & Respect Book

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

The Love and Respect Experience

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

Building Blocks

God’s commands are not burdensome, but are given to us to spare us from more pain. Why would God command you to do something that doesn’t work?

Respectfully Yours

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

The Love and Respect Experience

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

The Illumination Project (Journal)

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

Love & Respect

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

Building Blocks

When a husband chooses to come across lovingly even though he feels disrespected, he can prevent the Crazy Cycle from spinning and possibly getting out of control.

The Language of Love & Respect

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

The Love and Respect Experience
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