Cuaderno de Amor y Respeto

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

[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?”

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

To get offended is easy, but to forgive is within your power as you walk in His steps.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

As mature men, we need to take leadership and put this out on the table. We must acknowledge our feelings- we need to feel respected. However, as we do this we must acknowledge our wife’s feelings- she needs to feel loved!

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!)

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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).

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.

“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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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)

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

One thing to remember in this culture is if we say something complimentary towards one gender, we aren’t saying something against the other.

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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.

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.

Words of Love or Respect must uplift your spouse, edifying- never manipulating him or her.

He will feel appreciated when you disagree with him only in private and honor his authority in front of the kids.

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

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

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.

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.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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.

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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

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

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

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.