The Language of Love & Respect Workbook

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

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

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

Mutual understanding, not communication, is the key to a healthy marriage relationship.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Husbands, to energize your wife give her face-to-face time, allowing her to talk and share her feelings.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.

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 hunger for God can create an appetite in your children.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Whether visiting a prison, feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty a drink or speaking a word of love or respect, everything is to be done to and for Christ.

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.

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

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 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.

You’re the only person in the world who can meet your spouse’s deepest need for love and respect. After all, you alone are married to your spouse.

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 with conflict.

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

Avoid like the plague trying to punish each other as a means of “motivation.” Christ-followers instinctively know that this destroys any opportunity to act out of reverence for Christ. In all marital issues, love and reverence for Christ must be our primary motivation.

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.

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

Being friendly to her man is one of the most effective things a woman can do to strengthen her marriage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and your reverence for Jesus Christ.

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.

Each of you must focus on what God is calling you to do toward your spouse. Do not focus on what you think God is calling your spouse to do toward you.

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

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.

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

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.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

“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.“

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

[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?”

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.

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

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.

As you pray together, you will truly learn to love and respect together.

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

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

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.

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.