Love & Respect: Chapter 1 (Part 1)

Getting on the Crazy Cycle is all too easy. Recognizing that you're on the Crazy Cycle and learning how to keep it from spinning out of control is possible if husband and wife can learn how to meet each other's basic needs for love and respect.




Unfortunately, when a wife feels her husband is unloving, her usual approach is to complain and criticize in order to motivate her husband to become more loving. However, this usually proves about as successful as trying to sell brass knuckles to Mother Teresa.




Husbands are generally assured of their wives' love. Nevertheless, when wives show dislike, he interprets it as disrespect and even contempt. So the husband decides he will motivate his wife to become more respectful by acting in unloving ways. You see where this is going... it's a vicious cycle!




In regards to Ephesians 5:33, God commands wives to respect their husbands without conditions.

To say the least, doing something when you don't really feel you want to do it is counterintuitive. Therefore, this passage must be acted out in faith. God has ordained that wives respect their husbands as a method to win husbands to Himself. As a husband opens his spirit to God, he reopens his spirit to his wife. No husband feels affection toward a wife who appears to have contempt for who he is as a human being. The key to creating fond feelings of love in a husband toward his wife is through showing him unconditional respect.




Wives want their husbands to appreciate how much she loves him, and she yearns to feel more love from him. The best way to love a husband is to show him respect in ways that are meaningful to him. Such respect lets him feel his wife's love for him and ignites in him feelings of love for his wife.




End note: Keep things light - this releases tension.

Love & Respect: Chapter 1 (Part 1)

Part 1: The Crazy Cycle

Without Love - She Reacts - Without Respect - He Reacts




Chapter 1 - The Simple Secret to a Better Marriage

"Those who marry will face many troubles in this life..." (1 Corinthians 7:28)

This is why communication is so important!




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




Tension has a way of tearing down your self-image.




"Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." - Ephesians 5:33




The Love & Respect Connection is the key to any problem in a marriage.

How the need for love and the need for respect play off one another in a marriage has everything to do with the kind of marriage you will have.




A husband is to obey the command to love even if his wife does not obey this command to respect, and a wife is to obey the command to respect even if the husband does not obey the command to love. A husband is even called to love a disrespectful wife, and a wife is called to respect an unloving husband. There is no justification for a husband to say, "I will love my wife after she respects me," nor a wife to say, "I will respect my husband after he loves me."




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 a husband feels disrespected, he has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel unloving to his wife. Similarly, when a wife feels unloved, she has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to her husband.




If husband and wives do not learn how to control this "Crazy Cycle," it will just go round and round and where it stops nobody knows.

Love and Respect - Introduction

I recently ran across a book that I read and studied a couple years ago. After flipping through the pages and re-living all the truth that I learned from this book, I thought it would be great to share some of these lessons with others. So here goes to the start of many posts on the book Love & Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs!

Introduction: Love Alone Is Not Enough
What we often miss is the husband's need for respect. In addition, wives can fulfill their need to be loved by giving their husbands what he needs - respect.

In this book, one wife gave a testimony of when she started showing her husband respect, even when it was undeserved. "I watched his demeanor change right before my very eyes."

When we speak our spouse's love language (whatever that may be), they are more likely to respond in a loving manner.

Unfortunately, a wife's deepest need - to feel loved - is undermined by her disrespect to her husband. Similarly, a husband's deepest need - to feel respected - is undermined by his lack of love to his wife.

The journey to a Godly, satisfying marriage is never over. God will work in remarkable ways when we, men and women alike, submit ourselves wholeheartedly to this Biblical design for marriage (Love & Respect).