14 Week Small Group Guide (Download)

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.

We are either going to give in the darkness or we are going to give into the darkness.

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

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

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

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

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.

There is a plan to parent God’s way, even when our children may seek to go their own way at time. The secret is to follow this plan regardless. When you do, I believe you succeed in His eyes.

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

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

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”?

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.

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

Thank God for His forgiveness of your mistakes. In trying to be a loving man or a respectful woman, we blow it. Owning up to mistakes is never easy, but it is always the way to move forward. Take good care not to accuse your spouse of mistakes as you pray. Also, pray about any forgiving to be done in the family, any forgiveness that needs to be asked. Children may need forgiveness (and what about Mom and Dad?). “There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

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.

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Stay the course regardless of the child’s respect and obedience. This is the Family Rewarded Cycle: a parents love unto Christ regardless of the child.

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

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

Thank the Lord that in the very beginning He created them male and female – Blue and Pink. Ask Him for patience and ever-growing understanding of how men and women see and hear differently. “He created them male and female, and He blessed them.” (Genesis 5:2)

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

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

Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean the other person is offensive.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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.

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.

No matter what your struggle- criticism, constant conflict, sex, money, parenting, harsh words- learning to communicate the Love and Respect way can help you make crucial changes and build the kind of relationship that God blesses.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

When confronting your spouse, attack the behavior, not the person.

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

When a wife insists that her husband earn her respect, she puts him in a lose-lose situation.

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

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

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.

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!)

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

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

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.

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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)

As mature men, we need to take leadership and put this out on the table. We must acknowledge our feelings- we need to feel respected. However, as we do this we must acknowledge our wife’s feelings- she needs to feel loved!

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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)