Love & Respect in the Family (Audiobook)
The secret to parenting success is out! Psychological studies affirm what the Bible has always said: children need the love that God tells us to give them (Titus 2:4). And parents desire the respect that Scripture plainly says is our due (Exodus 20:12). Love & Respect in the Family gives practical guidance to help break the Crazy Cycle of family conflict and replace it with a healthy, energizing rhythm.
In this audiobook you will learn to:
- See love and respect as basic family needs
- Stop the Family Crazy Cycle of conflict
- Parent in six biblical ways that energize your children
- Discipline defiance and overlook childishness
- Be the mature one since parenting is for adults only
- Work as a team, according to the gender of the children
- Become a loving parent in God's eyes, regardless of a child's response
Love & Respect in the Family
Audiobook
The secret to parenting success is out!
Based on what the Bible says to parents on parenting, this book focuses on achieving healthy family dynamics. Dr. Eggerichs offers unprecedented transparency by including input from his wife and three adult children, who share wisdom gained from the good, the bad, and the ugly of their family life. It's all here in this eye-opening exploration of the biblical principles on parenting that can help make families function as God intended.
This is unabridged. There are six CDs totaling over 6 hours of listening time.
Unlocking the Family Crazy Cycle
When frustrated with an unresponsive child, a parent doesn’t declare, “You don’t love me.” Instead, the parent asserts, “You are being disrespectful right now.” A parent needs to feel respected, especially during conflicts. When upset a child does not whine, “You don’t respect me.” Instead, a child pouts, “You don’t love me.” A child needs to feel loved, especially during disputes. But here’s the rub: An unloved child or teen negatively reacts in a way that feels disrespectful to a parent. A disrespected parent negatively reacts in a way that feels unloving to the child. This dynamic gives birth to the FAMILY CRAZY CYCLE.
Emerson and Sarah Eggerichs
Dr. Emerson Eggerichs is an internationally known public speaker on the topic of male-female relationships. Based on over three decades of pastoring, counseling and study of biblical and scientific research, Dr. Eggerichs and his wife Sarah developed the Love and Respect Conference which they present to live audiences around the country.
About Love & RespectProduct Quotes
[Women], your self-love cannot be derived from your husband’s love. It can affect it, but it does not determine it.
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.
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.
In the ultimate sense, your marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship to Jesus Christ.
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.
Self-interest should never come ahead of your spouse’s interests.
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.
The parent-child relationship is as easy, and as difficult, as love and respect.
No one can really practice Love and Respect unless he or she does it as unto Jesus Christ.
Don’t pressure yourself with perfection. We are going to fail. A righteous man falls 7 times but gets back up.
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.
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.
Life is too short to fuss and fret over trivial irritations.
“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.
The Crazy Cycle is, indeed “the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25)
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.
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.
It’s true that women have intuition and that men should listen to them. It’s also true that women have blind spots and need the insight of their husbands.
Feeling unloved, a wife gets defensive and acts offensively without respect. Feeling disrespected, a husband gets defensive and acts offensively without love.
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.
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.
Being friendly to her man is one of the most effective things a woman can do to strengthen her marriage.
Accidental sparks (unwise remarks) ignite and fuel a fire, and vroom goes the Crazy Cycle.
We blame people for the bad things we do, but take credit for the good things we do.
One thing to remember in this culture is if we say something complimentary towards one gender, we aren’t saying something against the other.
It is crucial for a husband and wife to see that neither one is wrong, but both of them are very different--in body function, outlook and perspective.
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)
This is the Rewarded Cycle: His love blesses regardless of her respect and her respect blesses regardless of his love.
Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean the other person is offensive.
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.
Wives, to energize your husband do an activity with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, without talking.
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.
“Living happily ever after” means knowing how to deal with the imperfect parts of life.
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!
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)
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)
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.
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!
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.
Share what God is saying to your heart, not what you think He needs to say to your mate.
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.
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)
We might say that every negative action in the family has an equal and opposite negative reaction.
We must bring our identity in Christ to our parenting—we must not derive our identity from our children.
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.
Positive changes flood a relationship immediately when both husband and wife cancel the blame game!
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 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.
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.
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?”
Be quick to listen and understand and you have a much better chance of being 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.
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).
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.
We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.
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.
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.
Will we decide how we see God based on our circumstances, or will we see our circumstances in light of how we view God?
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)
She’s not wrong for not being male. He is not wrong for not being female. When you put pink and blue together, you get purple, the color of royalty; the color of God. Together, a husband and wife reflect God’s image.
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.
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.
You have to become proactive, rather than just trying to stop the reactive.
Most marriages will succeed when obeying the command to Love and Respect.
Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for Jesus Christ. God is using your spouse to bring you an eternal reward.
Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.
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.
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.
As strong and powerful as marriage bonds can become, our deepest dependency must be on the Lord, not another human being.
The key to motivating another person is meeting their deepest need, especially during conflict.
Both Judas and Peter denied Jesus Christ, but there is a huge difference between a Judas and a Peter.
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.
It’s crucial to communicate with the right tone of voice and the right expression on your face.
A woman needs love like she needs air to breathe. A man needs respect like he needs air to breathe.
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.
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.
When evil comes at you, you’re the one who makes the choice of whether or not it is going to go into you.
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.
“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 marriage is really a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for your Lord.