Love & Respect Live Conference Notebook

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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 you possess a forgiving spirit, words of Love and Respect will flow authentically from your lips- and realize that the Lord Himself is listening to you at moments like these. He knows you are not powerless, but actually full of power that He has granted you.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

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.

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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.

[Women], as you enter quiet dignity, not preaching at your husband or scolding him as though you were his mother, something happens in his soul as a male.

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

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

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!)

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

You must “ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves.”

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 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.

When a wife asks, “Do you love me?” She is not trying to put her husband on the spot. She is simply looking for reassurance.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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!

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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

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.

In your marriage be the first to “seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:11)

[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?”

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

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).

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Though the end can be worthy (to be loved and respected), when each uses unholy means (unloving and disrespectful words and actions), it will not achieve those ends. We must treat others as we expect them to treat us. To deny this makes us arrogant or fools, or both.

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.

Accidental sparks (unwise remarks) ignite and fuel a fire, and vroom goes the Crazy Cycle.

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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