My wife is a very wise woman. Her and I had both had long-term serious relationships before we met each other. I took the opportunity to spend most of my 20’s playing, while my wise wife decided that, after a failed relationship, she would take ownership of her part in it and learn to be better. There were two books she read that she encouraged me to read when we started dating. They were Love and Respect and The Five Love Languages. The concepts in these two books became foundational to our relationship. Not because they’re the ultimate guides on how to have a good marriage, but because they gave us a common language and set of tools from the start, when everything was perfect, to communicate when we had problems. I truly believe that taking the time together to read and discuss these books early in our relationship helped us to thrive and grow into the couple we are today.
This blog is a very brief synopsis of Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs. Hopefully this blog inspires you to go ahead and buy the book. Or buy two copies, one for you and one for your current / future special someone. Emerson is a Christian author and pastor who has written many books, but I find this one to be his ultimate work.
Love and Respect is largely based on Ephesians 5:33. “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” NIV Emerson states that a man must show love to his wife and a woman must show respect to her husband.
Love
Women desire to be loved above all else. Paul writes that husbands are to love their wives as much as the love themselves. And really, who do you love more than yourself? 😉 Emerson does a wonderful job of citing scripture and building an argument around why this it true and biblical in his book and I won’t repeat it here. As men, it is our mission to learn how our wife receives love. Does she love being touched? Does she love gifts, no matter how large or small? Does she love it when you do the dishes or straighten up the house for her? Figure out how your wife hears love and do that as much as you can. It will energize her more than you can possibly imaging. As men, I know we often feel that there is nothing we can do to make our wives happy. We feel that our wives don’t like us or that we’re not doing enough. I can tell you from my experience and from many men from my church, this works. No matter how bad or messed up things are, do something simple out of love for your wife everyday. The rewards will pile up quickly and you will be stunned and amazed.
What happens when you’re wife does not feel loved? Well, the opposite. She’ll be upset, angry, maybe even mean sometimes and you won’t know why. Well, no more excuses, you now know why. Sure, sometimes everyone has an off day, but men have the power to love their wives through just about anything.
Respect
Men desire to be respected above all else. This is by far the most controversial part of the book. Again, Emerson does a wonderful job rooting this concept in scripture and for this blog, please trust that it’s in the book. The main problem most people have when thinking of this is that respect is something that needs to be earned. I agree, and that is true for most relationships, but marriage is special. Marriage is a different relationship. When you get married, you enter a covenant with one other person, whom you chose, to put their needs above yours and to stay with them forever. This is the only relationship like it. Women, step one is to stop being disrespectful to your men. We are not children and we don’t want you to be our mothers. We want to feel in our hearts that you look up to us, seek us for guidance, and truly respect who we are and the choices we make. It’s so easy to be disrespectful to your partner without even thinking. Step one is to actively stop doing that. Step two is to think of ways to show him respect. Ask his opinion of something, and then listen to him. Even if you don’t follow is advice he’ll be delighted that you asked for it.
The interesting thing ladies, is if you start to intentionally show outward respect to your husband, he will initially have some sort of shocked reaction, but then the most beautiful thing will happen. Love will uncontrollably pour out of him. Don’t believe me? Try it!!! Right now, go tell your husband how much you respect him for something and then ask his opinion of something else. Watch him completely light up and show you love in ways you never thought possible. I double dog dare you!
The Crazy Cycle
The unfortunate reality of marriage is that most of us spend the majority of our time on the crazy cycle. It goes like this. Men do unloving things to their wives, as a result, women act disrespectfully to their husbands, which causes husbands to be more unloving, which causes wives to be more disrespectful. It starts small and snowballs fast.
How to end this crazy cycle and start being happy again:
1. Be the adult, yeah you, the one reading this blog
a. If you’re a woman, be respectful to your husband even if it’s the last thing you think he deserves
b. If you’re a man, be loving to your wife, even if it’s the hardest thing you could possibly think of
2. Continue to be the adult until it clicks in your spouse. All of a sudden they’ll be the person you married again. And the funny thing is, they’ll naturally be loving or respectful back because that is the way we’re made.
The Energizing Cycle
It’s the opposite of the crazy cycle. If you’re happy and you show more love and respect to each other, you’ll fuel each other’s souls. No matter what is going on, deep down you love your better half. Show them and you’ll light them up. In return they will light you back up and hence the energizing cycle. You don’t have to wait for something to be bad to try the concept of love and respect out. If things are great, make them better. There is no limit to how happy you can be in your marriage. How far can you go?