Respectfully Yours - Leader's Guide (Download)

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

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

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!

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

She’ll feel at peace with you when you let her vent your frustrations and hurts and don’t get angry and close her off.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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

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.

The woman absolutely needs love, and the man absolutely needs respect. It’s as simple- and as difficult- as that.

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.

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.

When one of you makes a mistake, control any anger you may feel and trust God completely, no matter what happens.

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

Mutual submission is the only way to live fairly together with mutual authority.

The Crazy Cycle is, indeed “the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25)

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.

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?”

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

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.

“Living happily ever after” means knowing how to deal with the imperfect parts of life.

Just because you may feel unloved or disrespected does not mean your spouse is sending that message.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

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

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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

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

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

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

You speak lovingly or respectfully no matter how your spouse may speak to you in return. Your spouse is not the reason--good or bad--why you speak unconditional words of love or respect. God is the reason, and as you depend on Him, you will become increasingly able to speak lovingly and respectfully to your spouse.

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.

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)

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

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

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

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.

You must distinguish between “I can’t” and “I won’t.”

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

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.

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

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

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 you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

When evil comes at you, you’re the one who makes the choice of whether or not it is going to go into you.

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.

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

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

Whose voice are you listening to: Hollywood or God’s 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.

[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.

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.

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 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.

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

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’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.

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

It is so easy to draw wrong conclusions about a spouse’s character and motives due to an occasional flare-up or silly comment.

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

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 the wife flatly says her husband will have to earn her respect before she gives him any, she leaves the husband in a lose-lose situation. Now he is responsible for both love and respect in the relationship. He must unconditionally love his wife and earn her respect.

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.

Money squabbles don’t undermine love and respect; they simply reveal unloving and disrespectful attitudes, which are the real reason why a marriage can start to wobble on the Crazy Cycle.

When we feel crippling discouragement by the sinful choices and outcomes of our kids, we must not let this permanently deter us from parenting God’s way.

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.

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

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).

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Wives, to energize your husband do an activity with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, without talking.

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

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.

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.

We get on the Crazy Cycle because without love a wife reacts without respect, and without respect a husband reacts without love.