Love and Respect Husband + Logo Mug

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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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.

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

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

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

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.

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

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.

There is power and freedom that comes in understanding that no one can cause you to react in a certain way. It is your choice.

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

Focus on the positive in the midst of the negative, and the Energizing Cycle will keep right on humming.

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?

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

Will we decide how we see God based on our circumstances, or will we see our circumstances in light of how we view God?

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

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)

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

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

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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.

Here is the secret to marriage that every couple seeks and yet few find: Unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It’s the secret that will help you achieve a brand new level of intimacy.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

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

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

It’s hard to realize that we would never act around our business associates the way we act around our 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.

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

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.

I often stress that one of the greatest rewards any persevering spouse can have is being a good example and influence on the children in the family.

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

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

We must bring our identity in Christ to our parenting—we must not derive our identity from our children.

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.

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

Pink and Blue perceptions not only affect seeing, they affect hearing as well. Women hear with pink hearing aids and men hear with blue hearing aids. Even more important to understand as you and your spouse seek to gain better communication, you can hear the very same words, but each of you will hear different messages.

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.

Your words reveal your heart.

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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

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

Since it is easy to focus on the negative, focus on your mate’s good qualities and express thanks with positive words of Love or Respect.

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

It is crucial for a husband and wife to see that neither one is wrong, but both of them are very different--in body function, outlook and perspective.

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

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

Husbands primarily want to hear ‘respect” talk during conflict. Wives primarily want to hear “love” talk during conflict.

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