Are Love and Respect the Same Thing?

One wife, a strong-minded career woman, wrote to tell us how she and her husband were using the Love and Respect concepts and that, as a result, their Crazy Cycle had drastically slowed down.

A Wife Wrote…

My husband was able to see that when he would withdraw (often because I was disrespectful), I would feel abandoned or unloved. So I would go after him with a vengeance that would make a warrior cower . . . which would disrespect him and hurt him deeply, causing him to withdraw even more —the whole “Crazy Cycle.” But he, for the first time, was willing to see that he had acted “unlovingly.” He was able to own some part of it. I think he was able to see that I was more delicate (even though I try really hard to sell my strength to everyone, including him) and that I do need him and want his support and strength. I asked him to forgive me for being so disrespectful. We have been talking and things have been gradually changing. Mutual understanding is setting in.

Love and Respect Was Lacking

This couple was able to discern that what started the Crazy Cycle spinning was a lack of love for her and a lack of respect for him.

But women often ask, “Aren’t love and respect the same thing?” I respond, “No, they aren’t. For instance, you respect your boss. You don’t love your boss.”

I Respect You But…

I have been in counseling sessions with couples, and with her mate sitting there listening, the wife will readily say, “I love my husband but don’t feel any respect for him.”

But when I turn this around and ask the wives how they would feel if they would hear their husbands say, “I respect you but don’t love you,” they are horrified. They exclaim, “I would be devastated.”

I asked one wife, “How long would it take you to get over that?”

She quickly answered, “Forever.”

Many wives would be up in arms upon hearing, “I respect you but don’t love you.” That is taboo! She would view her husband as a very unloving human being.

I Love You But…

Yet this same wife feels she can readily say to him, “I love you but don’t respect you.” What she doesn’t understand is that her husband is equally devastated by her comment and it also takes him “forever” to “get over it.”

The bottom line is that husbands and wives have needs that are truly equal. Both need love and both need respect. I believe that, and I teach that! But especially during conflict, she needs unconditional love, and he needs unconditional respect.

Are you willing to consider that your spouse has a need that is different, yet equally important?

Emerson

Excerpts taken from Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.

When All Hope Was Gone…a Husband Loves His Wife Back

If we listen to the culture, we could feel pretty hopeless about marriage. But those of us who are Christ followers, have HOPE – as the Johnson’s shared in my last blog. Allow me to share one more hope story…this time from a husband who had thrown his marriage away by failing to deal with his sin.

As a result of my abusive past 40 years ago with a myriad of issues I had never faced, I had become verbally abusive to a degree I had never been. God led me to heart-rending repentance and I experienced a healing of my heart in a way I had never experienced in my 30 + years as a "professing" Christian.  

But my marriage had failed. My wife had left me and candidly, she no longer had emotional feelings for me - and rightly so. We have lived apart since.  

Despite where I was and where we were, you challenged me to AGAPE my wife. As a result of this and God's miracles, this next weekend my wife and I are going away on a second honeymoon. I cannot accurately put into words the gratitude.  

I did not finish your book. Once I got to the section for wives (when we men can listen in), I stopped - for my focus has shifted to how I can serve my wife, not how I can grouse about how she is not serving me.  

God is still in the business of healing the broken hearted IF we are willing to participate in the process. God saved our marriage, and it is solidly based on the Rock and on the twin pillars of love & respect. (Anonymous) 

What sin are you holding onto in your life? Without a doubt, the enemy will attempt to use unresolved sin to destroy your marriage. Sin never brings us the satisfaction we are longing for. Deal with it today – and find real satisfaction through repentance and reconciliation! 

~ Emerson 

“If we say that we have no sin, 

we are deceiving ourselves 

and the truth is not in us. 

 If we confess our sins, 

He is faithful and righteous 

to forgive us our sins 

and to cleanse us 

from all unrighteousness.” 

~1 John 1:8, 9 NASB 

Your Children are Watching…

Enthusiastic Young People Embrace L&R in Slovenia 

If you are married and have children, remember your kids are watching.

One couple who came to a Love & Respect event as a last attempt to save their marriage, started reading the couple’s devotional together (The Love & Respect Experience) when they returned home. Soon after, their 4 year old son said, “Daddy, when I have a wife, I want to read that book with her just like you do with Mommy!” His Mom told us that previously he would get very upset when they argued. Now, when he senses even a little tension he tells them, “Go read the book!”

Are you paying attention to how your behavior affects your little ones? How about your teenagers? Could the increased tension you sense from them be a result of the tension they feel between you and your spouse?

Every now and then I get an email from a teenager or young adult who want to know how they can help their parents get along. Their concern and anxiety over their parents’ fighting or indifference to one another is heart-wrenching. They ask me how they can get their parents to read the Love & Respect book or come to a conference.

I understand because I grew up in a home where my parents were often fighting. I have memories of this as young as two years old. I cried myself to sleep many nights. I would’ve been beside myself with joy if my parents had gone to a marriage conference during those tumultuous years!

That’s one of the reasons why I do what I do. And one of my greatest joys is when I hear a story of how a child or young adult brought their parents to a conference!

Recently, while in the country of Slovenia, a pastor from a local church relayed a story that warmed my heart. A teenaged brother and sister, who were new Christ-followers, were concerned for their parents who were having some difficult struggles. When they heard about the Love & Respect conference, they bought their parents tickets and “dragged them there.” Afterwards, their parents said “This night changed our lives. We are going to make this our project: to go through the Love & Respect book together!”

Their teenagers were ecstatic! But what got them most excited was when their parents kissed – something they had not seen them do in a very long time.

Yes, parents…even your teenagers are watching. They are not indifferent to your marriage.

I was encouraged in Slovenia, a country where the majority of couples choose to live together rather than marry, that young people came out in large numbers to hear this message on marriage. They are choosing a different path than their parents.

What kind of an example is your marriage? What can you do – today – to change your course?

Respectfully,
~Emerson

Mutual Respect

These last several weeks I have been sharing with you the “if-then” principle that keeps the Energizing Cycle humming in your marriage.  

Today I want to share the final "if-then" principle:  

If a husband chooses to esteem and honor his wife and her role in the family, then his wife is motivated to accept and respect his desire to protect and provide for her and their children.

I heard from a wife who understood this powerful connection after reading Love & Respect made her aware of how unfulfilled her husband was in their relationship.  She admits that, although she deeply loved him, she never understood him.  The daughter of a domineering father, she had seen her mother struggle as he “kept his wife in her place,” and she determined this would never happen to her.  

After getting married, she and her husband both had careers, but she had the better job, which paid well.  When children began to arrive, she went to part-time and, because her husband had a rotating schedule, she could schedule herself to work when he could be at home.  She felt proud that she could show her husband she could be independent of him and show him it was her choice – not his choice – to be with him.  She had no idea of how he felt until they learned about Love and Respect.  Her letter continues:

I didn’t want a man to lord it over me like my father had, but this has brought about in my husband intense feelings of disrespect and of not even being needed in his own home.  Also, he has chosen to work at a job that is not fulfilling nor financially rewarding, but one that allows us to raise our children without day care.  He has stayed at this job to allow me greater freedom to be home, and I never looked at this as a tremendous sacrifice.  I just thought he was too afraid to try anything else.  We bought Love & Respect and read through it together.  When I saw the tears flow from years of misunderstanding and pain, it crushed me.  I feel an immense freedom now when I’m with my husband because he knows that I understand and can respond in his native tongue.

When this wife understood that her husband was honoring her by holding a lesser job, she became fully aware of how he was practicing headship of his family in a humble, sacrificial way, and she honored him by showing her deep respect.  They had been on a Crazy Cycle for years almost without realizing it.  Love and Respect put them on the Energizing Cycle and, as she says in closing, “saved our marriage.”

If you’ve attended a Love and Respect Conference, or read our books, you are familiar with the acronym COUPLE:  How to Show Love to Your Wife; and CHAIRS:  How to Show Respect to Your Husband.  If not, I encourage you to grab a copy of Love & Respect or The Language of Love & Respect and study how these principles can keep your marriage energized!

~Emerson

Excerpts taken from The Language of Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.

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Let’s be PROACTIVE, not REACTIVE

I hear from many couples who read Love & Respect and understand how to slow down and even stop the Crazy Cycle, but they struggle with how to keep it from starting up again. They try to react less negatively to each other, but it’s like turning down the settings on their flamethrowers. They don’t consume each other, but they don’t give each other cups of cold water too often either. Their marriage may be a little less crazy, but it’s not as enjoyable as the words Love and Respect would seem to promise.

Learning how Love and Respect can stop the Crazy Cycle is only the beginning. Every couple needs to realize they must consciously make the effort to get on what we call the “Energizing Cycle” which provides tools they can use to communicate better and more effectively.

I want to emphasize that slowing and even stopping the Crazy Cycle doesn’t result in automatically experiencing the Energizing Cycle. Putting out the negative doesn’t kindle the positive, nor is success merely the absence of failure. What we all must learn to do is go beyond being reactive and be proactive.

So how do we go from reactive to proactive in our marriage? I discovered the answer in the Energizing Cycle one day as I made a connection between Love and Respect that I had not seen before in Ephesians 5:33. The verse clearly says the husband must love his wife as much as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband.

I believe God prompted me to ask: “What would happen if a wife met her husband’s need for respect?” The answer seemed obvious: “He would be energized. That is, he would be motivated to love her in return.”

As I pondered that, another question arose, and its answer became obvious: “What would happen if a husband met his wife’s need for love?” Of course “She would be energized and motivated to respect him in return.”

Having seen this positive energizing connection between Love and Respect as stated in Ephesians 5:33, I decided it was like a cycle – an Energizing Cycle: “HIS LOVE MOTIVATES HER RESPECT. HER RESPECT MOTIVATES HIS LOVE.”

So back to our question: What can husbands and wives do specifically to proactively stay energized in their marriage? I will begin to unpack that in the following weeks, so stay tuned!

~Emerson

Excerpts taken from The Language of Love & Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.

“When I Knew Better, I Did Better”

Letter from a Soldier’s Wife

I felt led to write this to you today because as I was moving around on Facebook, I saw that you were going to be in Iraq. My husband is currently deployed there and my prayer is that he can go to your conference while you are there.

I had heard some good things about your book so I bought it. Unfortunately I bought it with the wrong intentions. I bought it to fix my husband, again. I had been buying books for years to try and get things better in our marriage. We have had an ok marriage but there were some BIG trouble spots and I was very concerned. The problem, I was VERY sure, was his fault since I thought I was doing what I needed to as a good, Godly wife (pride UGH!). Well a year went by without the book or the study guide cracked open by either of us. Orders came, he left for Iraq. We were having some difficult patches with him being gone, go figure, and I saw a copy of Love and Respect in a used book store. I didn't want to send him the copy I had bought new 'cause Heaven knows not everything comes back from over there in the way it left :-)! At the time we were having an argument and I thought...”he needs this book!” I sent it off and didn't think another thing about it.

I couldn't sleep a few weeks later and opened my nightstand drawer to get something to read and there was your book. I figured why not and honestly thought it would give me more ammo to show him what he was doing wrong. Oh my word! I got through the first couple of pages before God broke my heart! I spent most of that night and following morning reading, seeing my life on those pages, weeping that God and my husband would find a way to forgive me. The next morning my husband was due to call me on Skype. I asked him if he had read the book I sent and he got that "look" on his face. The same look he always got when I asked him to read a book, listen to a recording, watch a program: it was sort of a “guilty/not again” look. I told him he was welcome to read it “if” he wanted to. I told him how I came to reading it and proceeded to apologize, tell him how much I respected him and how, with God's help, I would be better for him, the wife he deserved. He didn’t know what to say except that it was ok and to please stop crying (it breaks his heart when I cry).

I have started learning about the things he likes and cares about so we have something to talk about. He does love football and has missed all of the season since he has been overseas. I told him one day that I came home from church and watched his favorite team play. It was sort of funny to watch my husband's jaw drop! That would have never happened before.

Another "respect" moment was when my daughter said something her dad told her. My first inclination was to say "he's crazy" or something to show that I didn't believe him, but I stopped. I thought about it and then HONESTLY answered he was right. My first thought had been to negate what he had said! That broke me again. It is really hard to show respect to someone when they aren't home for months and months but this was a perfect opportunity! I told my girls that if anyone would know it would be him…Before I would've cut down what he said…What a difference a respectful heart makes.

I know things won't be perfect when he comes home but they will be so much better. The quote that comes to mind is "when I knew better I did better" and I can assure you that I will. In my quest to "fix" a good man I fixed myself…My life, the way I think, the way I view my husband has changed…Thank God for breaking and healing my heart. I have heard about "respect" before but never in the way you put it. I will be giving this book to each of my daughters as they get married and I recommend it to EVERY wife I know. It is life changing! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!