Love and Respect Wife + Logo Mug

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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.”

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.

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.

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

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?

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

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

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

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

Recognize your different gifts--how each of you (Pink and Blue) functions according to God’s perfect design.

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

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.

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

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

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

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

Do you believe that there is a God who really loves you and wants to help you?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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.

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.

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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.

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”?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

[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?”

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

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

When a husband chooses to do or say something loving, and that includes saying, ‘I’m sorry for coming across in an unloving way,’ he energizes his wife. When a wife decides to express herself respectfully, and that includes apologizing for her disrespectful attitude, she energizes her husband.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

“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.“

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.

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.

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.

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

Women give a report to build rapport. Men bond through shoulder-to-shoulder activities without talking.

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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

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. A wife can choose to be disrespectful or respectful. A husband can choose to be unloving or loving.

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.

We are equal but we are not the same.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.