The Love & Respect Experience (Audiobook)

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

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

No one can really practice Love and Respect unless he or she does it as unto Jesus Christ.

Husbands, even Jesus Himself was asked by a woman, “Do you not care?” (Luke 10:40) When your wife accuses you of not caring, decode her deeper meaning.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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?

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.

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

Before hitting send, ask yourself, "Have I listened carefully and understand the exact issue on the table?"

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

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

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 you come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

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

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.

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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”?

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.

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

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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

How we react to a situation reveals more about us than about the other person.

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

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.

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

His love blesses regardless of her respect; her respect blesses regardless of his love.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

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.

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.

[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.

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.

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)

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

The heart of my communication means the other person cannot get my heart to be unkind, unloving, or disrespectful. Instead, I have made a decision about who I will be independent of the other person. I won’t blame my unkindness on someone else.

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Most marriages will succeed when obeying the command to Love and Respect.

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

When you look to God and His Word as your ultimate source of significance and security, you don’t demand that your spouse take that role in your life. And as you draw strength from the Lord individually, He draws you closer together as a couple.

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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).

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 the Lord for the goodwill each of you has toward the other. Ask Him for strength to give each other the benefit of the doubt during moments when someone’s goodwill seems to be lacking. “He who seeks good finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it.” (Proverbs 11:27)

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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

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

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.

The difference between successful couples and unsuccessful couples is that successful ones keep getting up and dealing with the issues.

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.

Do you understand that God feels compassion for you, no matter what you have done or what your circumstances may be?

[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?”