Love and Respect

I’ve long believed that the best gift you can give your child is to love your spouse and show them a positive and genuine example of marriage. Unfortunately, it’s easy to lose focus of this conviction when stress, exhaustion, and frustration set in. I am too quick to take this out on my husband. Although I love my husband wholeheartedly and am still very much in love with him I sometimes feel I’m not communicating this to him effectively. The book I’m currently reading, Love and Respect, has completely enlightened me to why I am feeling this way and what I can do to make some positive changes in my marriage and in the example I’m setting for my kids.

The author’s basic theory, learned after years of counseling and pastoring, is that women and men have different needs when it comes to receiving love and our society has done a poor job of showing women how to effectively “love” their husbands. He doesn’t let husbands off the hook and has some very clear, straightforward advice and challenges for men. But obviously what I was looking for most was how to show my husband love in a language that he both heard and received. I realized that although I’m good at loving (as most women innately are); I’m not always so good at showing respect. And respect spells love for men. It’s not that I purposely don’t show him respect; I’ve just been ignorant as to what this actually looks like.

Just as husbands are called to love their wives unconditionally, wives are called to respect their husbands unconditionally. This is what most women get caught up on because in our eyes our husbands aren’t always acting in ways that we feel deserves our respect. But are we always acting in a way that deserves his love? Of course not! Respecting unconditionally doesn’t necessarily mean always agreeing with his actions but it does mean treating him respectfully through our actions and words. It also means getting to know what respect looks like and feels like to our husband. The author, Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, gives very concrete, specific examples of ways we can let our husbands know that we respect them (he also gives husbands great examples of ways they can show their wives love in ways that are meaningful to us).

All couples go through phases of what Eggerichs appropriately calls “The Crazy Cycle”. I don’t think I even need to explain it since anyone who’s been married any amount of time can easily identify with this term. He explains that when in this cycle most often it takes one party to let go of whatever issue may have seemed to start the cycle and to start showing their spouse unconditional love and respect. Although it might not be instant, any good-willed (he uses this term a lot) spouse will respond positively when this happens. As with all marriage advice, the solution starts with you. And it’s not about changing your spouse; it’s about giving them what they need. In return they will begin to give you what you need.

I highly recommend reserving this book at your library or purchasing your own copy. It’s a book that would be good to have around as it’s really easy to forget our good intentions when life takes over. I now finished reading the book about a month ago and already wish I had my own copy to refer back to. Old habits are so hard to break and gentle, and not-so-gentle, reminders are necessary at times to jolt us out of our stubborn ways. I hope some of you benefit as I have from this book!