Building Blocks DVD Study - Couple's Kit

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

“Living happily ever after” means knowing how to deal with the imperfect parts of life.

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.

We are equal but we are not the same.

We have to step back as Christ followers and ask, “Do I have false expectations that my relationship should be romantic 99% of the time?”

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

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

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.

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.

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.

When your wife comes to talk to you, listen to her. Realize she is coming to you because you matter more to her than anyone else. She has certain emotional needs and only you can meet them. Sometimes she may say things that don’t make sense to you and she is apt to misspeak and exaggerate when she is upset, but don’t put her down. Instead, listen to her heart. Give her a chance to express her concerns and, as she does so, don’t try to fix her. Don’t give her your solutions unless she asks for them.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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)

When we speak before we think, we widen the chances the other person(s) will be notably hurt, frustrated, confused, angry, fearful, or offended by something we’ve communicated.

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

Being a person who communicates what is true frequently demands tact, and at times it can feel like sidestepping land mines. It takes work to be both truthful and tactful.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Don’t pressure yourself with perfection. We are going to fail. A righteous man falls 7 times but gets back up.

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.

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

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.

When a husband feels disrespected, he has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel unloving to his wife. (Perhaps the command to love was given to him precisely for this reason!) When a wife feels unloved, she has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to her husband. (Perhaps the command to respect was given to her precisely for this reason!)

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)

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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.

You must distinguish between “I can’t” and “I won’t.”

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

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

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

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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.

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.

His love motivates her respect. Her respect motivates his love.

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

[Women], your self-love cannot be derived from your husband’s love. It can affect it, but it does not determine it.

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

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).

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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.

When one of you makes a mistake, control any anger you may feel and trust God completely, no matter what happens.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Your words reveal your heart.

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 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.

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.

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 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.