Cuaderno de Amor y Respeto

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

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

As you pray together, you will truly learn to love and respect together.

Mutual submission is the only way to live fairly together with mutual authority.

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

Your spouse can affect you, but your spouse does not control you.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

“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.“

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

We fool ourselves into thinking the other person causes us to be the way we are. They really don’t! But if we lock into that idea, we become helpless, hopeless victims.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

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

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

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

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

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”?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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.

Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.

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

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

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

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.

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

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)

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

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

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

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.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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.

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.

Marriage is a test of how you unconditionally love and respect your spouse as you obey, honor, and please the Lord.

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)

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

We can all have moments of anger, but this does not mean we have to lose control and sin.

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.

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

Responding to offensive words or actions with your own offensive words and actions is damaging and unproductive.

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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 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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

Each of you must focus on what God is calling you to do toward your spouse. Do not focus on what you think God is calling your spouse to do toward you.

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

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

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.