The Love & Respect Experience (Audiobook)

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

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.

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.

When one of you makes a mistake, control any anger you may feel and trust God completely, no matter what happens.

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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”?

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

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.

A parent needs to feel respected, especially during conflicts...A child need to feel loved, especially during disputes.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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)

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.

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

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

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

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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).

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

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

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)

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.

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)

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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?”

“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.“

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

[Husbands] do you realize the power of just holding your wife’s hand?

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

When evil comes at you, you’re the one who makes the choice of whether or not it is going to go into you.

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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).

We blame people for the bad things we do, but take credit for the good things we do.

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.

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