Cuaderno de Amor y Respeto

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.

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.

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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.

If you want your wife to express appreciation for your attempts to be loving, you must use thankful words when she tries to speak or act respectfully.

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.

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.

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

If you want your husband to express appreciation for your attempts to be respectful, you must speak thankfully when he tries to be loving.

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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 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.

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!

“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.“

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

When a husband chooses to do or say something loving, and that includes saying, ‘I’m sorry for coming across in an unloving way,’ he energizes his wife. When a wife decides to express herself respectfully, and that includes apologizing for her disrespectful attitude, she energizes her husband.

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

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.

The moment we cry to Him for help, He is already pleased. He gives us strength to love our children.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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?”

Optimism or pessimism? It is always a choice, no matter what your natural temperament.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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)

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

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.

[Husbands] the most powerful weapons you have are your ears. Just listen to your wife, and she is much more likely to feel understood.

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.

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

Parenting is a faith venture. As we parent “unto Christ” we reap God’s reward, “knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord” (Eph. 6:8 NKJV)

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

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

Women give a report to build rapport. Men bond through shoulder-to-shoulder activities without talking.

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)

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

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.

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.