Love and Respect Wife + Logo Mug

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Always remember that Pink and Blue have different wiring, different preferences. Assume your spouse has goodwill toward you, no matter what. Both of you can be right, while being different.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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!

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

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.

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

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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?”

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

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

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

If you want your wife to express appreciation for your attempts to be loving, you must use thankful words when she tries to speak or act respectfully.

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?

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.“

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).

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

“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.

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you want your husband to express appreciation for your attempts to be respectful, you must speak thankfully when he tries to be loving.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

You may believe that the careless, unloving or disrespectful words you speak are because your spouse is causing you to speak this way, but Jesus says that it is coming out of your heart.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.”

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Don’t label each other as bad because you differ on how you solve your troubles.