Love and Respect Wife + Logo Mug

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

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.

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)

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

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

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.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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.

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.

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

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

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)

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.”

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

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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)

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

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

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

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.

“With eyes of faith, envision Jesus standing just beyond the shoulder of your spouse and listening to every word you speak in every conversation, pleasant or tense. When you speak lovingly or respectfully to your spouse, you are speaking to Christ. Your spouse just happens to be there too.” This truth has sanctified the lips of many. Instead of giving their spouse a verbal whipping or choking on the idea of saying anything positive, now some spouses are motivated to speak words of unconditional love or respect.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Your hunger for God can create an appetite in your children.

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

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

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

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.

To get offended is easy, but to forgive is within your power as you walk in His steps.

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

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.

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

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.

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

[Women], your self-love cannot be derived from your husband’s love. It can affect it, but it does not determine it.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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

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

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.

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

[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 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.

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

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.

I often stress that one of the greatest rewards any persevering spouse can have is being a good example and influence on the children in the family.

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

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

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!

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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

Wives, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your husband not only back to you, but to God. Husbands, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your wife not only back to you, but to God. (1 Corinthians 7:16)

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!

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

It’s so easy to dismiss our spouse as childish because we don’t have the same vulnerabilities they do.

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

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

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.

Do you bow to the influence of Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.