14 Week Small Group Guide (Download)

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

[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.

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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)

You may believe that the careless, unloving or disrespectful words you speak are because your spouse is causing you to speak this way, but Jesus says that it is coming out of your heart.

I have concluded that those of us in the church who believe we have the Truth are not using the whole truth. A crucial part of God’s Word has been completely ignored, or perhaps simply gone unnoticed, when it has been there right under our noses the whole time! Many Christian spouses know Ephesians 5:33 and can at least paraphrase it. The Apostle Paul tells husbands to love their wives as much as they love themselves, and wives are to respect their husbands. But is anyone really listening? Perhaps the first step to better communication between husband and wife is to hear what God’s Word clearly says. --Emerson

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

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

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

If a husband loves his wife as he should, she will feel honored and respected. If a wife respects her husband as she should, he will feel loved and appreciated. It’s a win-win.

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

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?”

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.

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.

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.

Unconditional love or respect is never wasted. Hang onto this promise: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

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.

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.

When you’re truly Christ-centered, instead of child-centered, you will be a more effective parent in the long run.

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

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.

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

If a husband is commanded to agape- love his wife, then she truly needs love.

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.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

Your hunger for God can create an appetite in your 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.

The more we are upset at something, the wiser it is to let twenty-four hours pass before responding.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

Clearly, in the marriage, in the family and in the household, when you speak words of blessing, you are speaking to the Lord, and for this you will be rewarded.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

The key to motivating another person is meeting their deepest need, especially during conflict.

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

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

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

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.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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)

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

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.

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.