The Number One Problem in Marriage

Photo Credit - Sarah Oskay

It's communication, right?

As we study letters and emails from thousands of spouses, the common thread that runs through almost all of them is that, in one way or another, the number one problem in marriage is communication …or the lack thereof!

I disagree.

It would be easy to deduce that communication is the key to marriage, but I don’t agree. To say that communication is the key to marriage is to assume that both spouses speak the same language.

We speak different languages.

After more than three decades of pastoring, counseling married couples, and conducting marriage conferences, I have learned that the wife speaks a “love language” and the husband speaks a “respect language.” They don’t realize this, of course, but because he is speaking one kind of language (respect) and she is speaking another (love), there is little or no understanding and little or no communication.

My wife Sarah and I learned that we speak different languages through practical personal experience. While we had a good marriage, we still struggled with irritation, anger, and plenty of hurt feelings. Often we just couldn’t communicate, but we didn’t know why.

A lot of the time it seemed that indeed we were speaking different languages, but we had no idea what to do about it. It was frustrating - and embarrassing. After all, I was a pastor and should have had the answer to something like this!

A command, not a suggestion.

Fortunately, I finally found the answer - or, more correctly, God revealed it to me - in a single passage of Scripture. Ephesians 5:33 says, “each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (NIV).

As I pondered God’s clear command (not suggestion) in Ephesians 5:33, I uncovered what I came to call the “Love and Respect Connection.” I am commanded to love Sarah because she needs love; in fact, she “speaks love.” Love is the language she understands.

But when I speak to her in unloving ways, her tendency is to react with disrespectful words.

Sarah is commanded to respect me because I need respect; in fact, I “speak respect.” Respect is the language I understand.

But when she speaks to me in disrespectful ways, my tendency is to react with unloving words.

Round and round we would go in a Crazy Cycle, each saying things that were the exact opposite of what was needed!

The love and respect connection.

I finally figured out that the opposite would also be true: if I would speak loving words to Sarah, she would usually respond with words of respect. And if she spoke words of respect to me, I would usually respond more lovingly to her!

Bingo! Communication problems solved, right? Well, sort of.

We had a major breakthrough.

These changes were not easy or automatic. We took baby steps at first, but soon we were making progress, and eventually we had a major breakthrough.

As I spoke Sarah’s mother tongue of love and Sarah spoke my mother tongue of respect, we became friends who shared mutual understanding. For years we had been like a Russian and an Israeli, speaking our different languages. All we did was get louder as we tried to get our respective points across!

But as we began to learn each other’s vocabulary – as I learned some of her love language, and she learned some of my respect language – amazing things happened. Not only did we start understanding each other (in many ways for the first time), but our communication improved dramatically.

Women need respect and men need love.

Let me interject here…because I talk about a woman’s deepest need for love, and a man’s deepest need for respect, I sometimes get the comment from women, “Well, I need respect too!” To which I reply, “Absolutely!” 

Just because a woman most often speaks a love language, does not mean she doesn’t desire respect. And just because a man most often speaks the language of respect, does not mean he has no need for love. Love and respect will interact and flow back and forth on both sides in order for a marriage to stay energized.

Mutual understanding leads to good communication.

So if you want to work on the number one problem in your marriage, you need to work on understanding one another. It is the mutual understanding that leads to good communication.  

Does this mean your marriage will be completely free of stress, disagreement, and tension? Of course not.

We are human just like you.

Sarah and I still argue over some of the same old things; we still get irritated with each other for certain habits and practices. We are human and often fail, just like you! But now we know how to communicate with each other and deal with our problems. We don’t know it all, but we know a great deal more than we did before we discovered the connection between love and respect.

If you’re like most couples, your communication can improve. Are you willing to learn your spouse’s language?

Let’s get started!

Husbands: Choose one thing you know speaks love to your wife, and do it today.

Wives: Think of one thing you respect about your husband and tell him today.

Love for her…respect for him. That’s mutual understanding!

Emerson

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.

It's like "Love & Respect" had kids!

IT'S HERE!! The Bible commands love and respect between parent and child (Exodus 20:12, Titus 2:4), just as it teaches love and respect between a husband and wife (Ephesians 5:33).

Love and Respect in the Family: The Respect Parents Desire, The Love Children Need is packed full of completely new content....cover to cover.  It is the book people have been asking me to write for years.  In essence, when they feel unloved, children react to parents in ways that feel disrespectful. When feeling disrespected, parents react to children in ways that feel unloving. Neither premeditate this negative reaction, but this is how each appears to the other and round and round it goes. It's called the Family Crazy Cycle and this book helps families jump off of it.

How is it different than other books on parenting?

The fact that my own adult children speak into the content sets it apart, and that I've waited 35 years to write it makes this unlike other parenting books out there.  Also, because of the trauma of my own upbringing, I bring a different perspective than other authors that may have had a more idyllic childhood.  This book includes the perspectives of both Sarah and me, as well as our three children, Jonathan, David, and Joy.

This book seeks to answer what the Bible says to parents. If parents read and apply the principles in Love & Respect in the Family, they will be able to stop the crazy cycle of family conflict and begin to energize their children.  

The book:

• Explains volumes of information about family dynamics for the lay person
• Provides a simple plan for parents to follow
• Validates the parent's need for respect - particularly the father
• Explains how to deal with the feeling of being disrespected
• Explains the mindset of a child: children are typically not trying to be disrespectful, but often are immature, selfish, or irresponsible
• Explains the child's need for love and how to meet that need
• Shows the parent how to love when feeling disrespected
• Reveals the foundational reason to parent: to hear Christ say, "Well done!"
• Begins and ends with what the Bible says about parenting instead of using the Bible to justify what we want to say psychologically and sociologically
• Is "father friendly," which mothers love
• Is both parent and child-focused

With the best of my ability, when it comes to the Biblical topic of parenting, I have tried to be an ambassador for the kingdom of Christ. I believe that as a pastor and teacher, I have a responsibility to rightly represent Christ's platform when it comes to marriage and parenting. I know that I have to give an account before Him on that final day, and I'm very aware of the fact that the apostle James says that those who teach will receive a stricter judgment. This is less about writing a bestseller and more about rightly representing the heart of Christ to parents. I happen to believe that when we honor Him, He will honor us.

~Emerson

Once you've read the book, would you be so kind as to post your review on Amazon.com. Reviews will help get this important message out.


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The Perfect Plan

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 Some years ago when I was pastoring and my sons Jonathan and David were 11 and 9, we had some missionaries stay in our home for several days.  After a reminder in how they should behave, they were perfect angels the entire time the missionaries were there (this may have qualified as a miracle)!

However, minutes after our guests left, the boys got into a huge wrestling fight. Separating them I said, “What happened?!  You’ve both been so good!”  David said, "We can be good only so long."  I replied, "But I named you Jonathan and David so you'd be best of friends." To which David replied, “You should have named us Cain and Abel!”

I felt a mixture of joy and sorrow at that point:  sorrow that they seemed to be enemies rather than friends, yet joy that David obviously had been listening to the Bible stories!

So we all agree there is no perfect family – in fact, most families experience the Family Crazy Cycle on a daily basis.

But there is a plan to parent God’s way and this plan is the most perfect plan there is.  Does that mean if we follow the plan, we’ll have a perfect family?  No.  Obviously we are all flawed – so perfection is not possible here on earth.  But it is possible to succeed at parenting in God’s eyes if we follow His plan regardless. 

Malachi 4:6 says:  "Elijah will teach parents how to love their children. He will also teach children how to honor their parents. If that does not happen, I will come. And I will put a curse on the land” (NIRV).

Wow.  That’s pretty heavy.  What else does the Bible say about parenting?

God calls children to honor (respect) their parents in Exodus 20:12, Matthew 15:4, and Ephesians 6:2.

And though God puts agape-love in the heart of a parent, children do not always feel that unconditional love. Parents readily admit, “I love my child but I do not like my child.” This is why the older women are to encourage the young mothers to phileo-love their children in Titus 2:4. This Greek word is the root of our English word Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. In other words, mothers in the home are to be friendlier.  Though moms love their kids unconditionally, they can appear negative and irritated in the home.

 As for fathers, though they possess compassion for their children according to Psalm 103:13, kids do not always feel that love as dads provoke their children to anger (Ephesians 6:4) and exasperate them so that they lose heart (Colossians 3:21).

Bottom line: Kids need to feel loved just as parents need to feel respected.

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

The good news is that when children feel loved they are motivated to respond positively to parents. And when parents feel respected they are energized to be lovingly affectionate with their kids.  When these needs are met, good things happen in the family.

That’s the perfect plan.  But of course, living this out is much more difficult on a day to day basis.  Ironically, parents who are supposed to be more emotionally mature than their children are often guilty of being just the opposite.  And children do not always respond to our love in the way we expect. 

But parenting is for adults only.  And as adults, the responsibility is on us to act like it. Can we parent God’s way even if our children disregard us, disobey us, and disrespect us?

We’ll delve into this more next time.  Until then, will you begin today to search the Scriptures for God’s blue print for parents?  I believe you’ll be encouraged.

~Emerson

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What Am I Worth?

Photo Credit

A testimony from Jacki…

For many years my husband and I would get caught up in the Crazy Cycle. Of course we didn't realize it at all and both just assumed that this was married life. I mean, marriage is hard right? Happily ever after is only a fairy tale. When it comes to marriage we do the best we can, and try to make the best out of the results.

This approach didn't feel right, but I knew no better. I knew that I had to submit to my husband, but after some time I began feeling like my opinions and feelings didn't matter. All my submitting, attempts at gentleness, all my words of love were not getting me anywhere. I was getting to where I flat out didn’t like my husband very much. AND, I thought that was ok. I didn't have to like him or even love him to be married; I just had to make the day to day work. My husband lived in a dream world where he didn't have a clue to my feelings. If you asked him, everything was hunky dory. I was absorbing everything myself, and slowly dying inside.

Then I realized that I had within me the ability and power to more actively engage and fight for my marriage. Through Love and Respect (specifically the women’s study) I realized that God did not want me to have a mediocre marriage. That he wanted my husband and I to be passionate about each other, and also that He has given me, ME the power and ability to proactively do things that specifically speak to my husband’s heart to help him see mine. I realized that it didn't matter what world my husband lived in, nor how he responded to me, that would determine my actions in my marriage. My actions would be determined by the Word of God and who I am in Him. Once I learned to put my identity in Christ, not in my husband, I was truly able to give my husband what he really needed... unconditional respect.

Thank you so much for your faithfulness that made this story true. (Jacki)

Taken from the Respectfully Yours DVD study