Many books on marriage stress the need for husbands to love wives, but the unique feature about this book is the concept of wives showing unconditional respect toward husbands. My theory is simple, but it is so powerful that I decided to leave the pastorate in 1999 and begin sharing these truths about love and respect full time. Ever since, Sarah and I have shared our message with thousands of married couples and, again and again, we receive confirmation that we are definitely on the right track. Every wife we’ve met wants her husband to appreciate how much she loves him, and she yearns to feel more love from him. What we try to share is that the best way to love a husband is to show him respect in ways that are meaningful to him. Such respect lets him feel his wife’s love for him and ignites in him feelings of love for his wife.
This book will show you the power of unconditional love and unconditional respect. As you and your spouse use these powerful tools, you can save a struggling marriage from the divorce court or a “ho-hum” marriage from boredom and concealed bitterness. If you have a good marriage, you can make it even better. Sarah and I had a good marriage before we discovered the simple secret taught in this book. But now our marriage is
much
better.
How much better is it? Have we reached some kind of marital nirvana and all is perfect? Hardly. We still come across to one another at times as unloving or disrespectful. We still get on the Crazy Cycle like everybody else. But we have made a decision that has changed the course of our marriage for the good. If only my mom and dad could have discovered this. Sarah and I now know how to reduce the number of times we spin on the Crazy Cycle, and we often stop it before it gets started.
What is this life-changing decision we both have made? I have decided to believe that Sarah does not intend to be disrespectful. Oh, she can get nasty, but that isn’t how she feels in her heart. I know she respects who I am deep inside. Sarah has decided to believe that I do not intend to be unloving, though I still hurt her at times with my comments and attitudes. She knows that in my heart I love her deeply and would even die for her. So how does all this actually play out? I’d like to illustrate with eggs and towels.
SARAH CAN’T STOP PEPPERING THE EGGS
Sarah likes pepper on her eggs. I do not. In her view, scrambled or sunny-side-up eggs need to be peppered until black. In the course of our marriage, Sarah has fixed me eggs hundreds of times, and she has put pepper on these eggs just about every time she cooks them, even though she knows I don’t like peppered eggs. But I have concluded that Sarah is not doing this to spite me or because I am unimportant to her. I know her heart. She has even muttered in frustration (after peppering the eggs again), “Well, they aren’t any
good
if they don’t have pepper.”
As baffled as I am by this constant peppering, I have not concluded that Sarah is plotting to change me or irritate me. I know Sarah is thinking of other things. She is on autopilot when she peppers my eggs. I have told her hundreds of times, “Please don’t put pepper on my eggs.” If she really respected me, wouldn’t she listen to me? Wouldn’t it be natural for me to explode in anger, especially if I can predict this— again? Wouldn’t it be right for me to become doubtful of her good intentions? Wouldn’t it be right for me to start keeping track of many annoying things she does like peppering my eggs? All this would prove I really don’t matter to her, wouldn’t it?
But I am able to interpret Sarah much less negatively than that because I have decided that she does not intend to be disrespectful, not in her deepest soul. I made that decision, and other husbands are making it too. One man wrote:
It was freeing to reflect on the fact that my wife was well-intentioned and good-hearted toward me, as she acknowledged. Sadly, I could misunderstand her heart. There were lots of things I didn’t know about her heart. For example, it turns out she had been going through postpartum depression. Understanding some things like that softened my heart a lot. I started to think more about how she might not be sensing my love for her, even though I was well-intentioned and good-hearted toward her.
This husband “gets it.” He has made the right decision about his wife, and so can you regarding your spouse.
EMERSON CAN’T PUT THINGS WHERE THEY BELONG
I leave wet towels where they don’t belong. I leave a loaf of bread on the counter. I leave the cupboard doors open. I leave books stacked on the living room floor. I have an excuse, of course: I am mentally preoccupied. As Sarah says, “He is always thinking.” Sometimes I stun myself by what I do or don’t do. Looking back at the cupboard doors, I realize most of them are still open. I say to myself,
Why didn’t I close those doors? Where was my mind?
Or I leave towels lying on the bedroom floor instead of hanging them up in the bathroom. (By the way, this is where we’ve learned to keep things light, which releases tension. When Sarah dangles the towel in front of my face, I smile and say, “What a coincidence! I was just going to hang that towel up!”)
Now don’t get me wrong. I am not a pig. But I am married to Sarah, who is the epitome of neatness and cleanliness, and I flunk by her standards. She is not a perfectionist, but she is logical. Why leave a towel on the bed when a rack is in the bathroom waiting for the towel? Why leave a cupboard door open when the hinge functions both ways? Why leave the books on the floor when it would only take a few seconds to put them on the bookshelf ?
But Sarah has not concluded that this means I am out to ignore her or irritate her. She knows I am thinking of other things, that I am on autopilot as I come and go. Yet she has told me thousands of times, “Please pick things up and put them away.” Wouldn’t it be easy for her to say, “If you really loved me, you would listen to me”? Wouldn’t it be natural for her to explode in anger? Wouldn’t it be right for her to become doubtful of my good intentions? Wouldn’t it be right for her to start keeping track of the many things I do like this? After all, surely all this would prove she really doesn’t matter to me.
But Sarah is able to see me in a more positive light because she has decided to believe that I do not purpose to be unresponsive and unloving, not in my deepest soul. She has made that decision, and so have other wives. One woman married more than thirty years says:
As I look back, I realize how disrespectful I’ve come across. He is a naturally kind and compassionate man, very outgoing, and has the gift of serving (he’s always willing to do things for me on a moment’s notice) . . . truly a well-meaning, good-hearted man who has had sin in his life, like all of us. . . . I realize that maybe my expectations were too unreasonably high.
Another wife adds:
Since early in our marriage when he came across as really controlling and not listening to concerns that I would have, I didn’t see that he had feelings inside. I started the “in your face” bitter wife responses. Now I see more of his heart and am starting to understand what my words have done to him.
These gals “get it” also. They’ve made a decision to change their approach, and so can you regarding your spouse.
Yes, Sarah and I both have our faults. The Crazy Cycle always wants to spin, but we can control it by remembering the Love and Respect Connection. We know this works, and there is much I want to share about how and why it works. The first step is understanding just how husbands and wives communicate.
CHAPTER TWO
TO COMMUNICATE,
DECIPHER THE CODE
I
f 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.
A couple was about to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary, and the wife began to wonder if her husband would remember. There had been plenty of times during the past decade when he had forgotten their anniversary altogether. No matter what she did—little hints, bigger hints—he would miss it. But on their tenth wedding anniversary, with no hints at all, he remembers! He makes a beeline for Hallmark and is soon gazing upon all those racks full of greeting cards. One colorful card quickly catches his eye. He skims the words—they are perfect! He thinks,
This card is
her
—no doubt about it
. He grabs it off the shelf, pays the clerk, and hurries home rejoicing. Finally, he has remembered their anniversary, and a special one it will be too.
She is there when he arrives at home, so he sneaks the card into another room, signs it, and quickly writes her name on the envelope. He even adds a couple of tiny hearts over her name as an extra touch. Then he comes out and hands his wife her tenth anniversary card. She beams from ear to ear. She is so happy—finally he has remembered! She tears open the card and begins to read . . . and then her face falls. The eyes that had been bright with loving energy turn cold. Her beaming countenance becomes sour and dark.
“What’s wrong?” her husband asks. (He’s a very sensitive guy, and he can pick up on these things.)
“Nothing.”
“There is, too. What’s wrong?”
“No, there’s
nothing
wrong.”
“But there is—I can see it. What is it?”
“Well, it’s not bad . . . for a
birthday
card.”
As you might guess, the conversation is headed downhill from here. “You’re kidding!” says the husband, grabbing the card from her hand. “No way . . . unbelievable!”
“No,
you’re
unbelievable!”
The husband blinks in the face of his wife’s very real anger. He knows he is full of goodwill. He has remembered their tenth anniversary. He has bought her a present as well as a card. “Well, honey, I made an honest mistake. Give me a break.”
“Give you a break? An honest mistake—oh, it was an honest mistake, all right, because you just don’t care. Do you know what? If you took your car in to be detailed and they put a stripe on the side that was even a fraction of an inch off, you would notice that, right? Why? Because you
care
about it. But you don’t care about our anniversary. You don’t care about
me
!”
The husband can’t believe it. He is moving from feeling guilty to getting angry. What he thought would be a loving celebration of their tenth anniversary has become a conflict that is escalating fast.
“Hey, I made an honest mistake, all right? Give me a break. Good grief !”
“You buy me a birthday card on our tenth anniversary, and you expect me not to be upset? I’d rather you hadn’t bought me any card at all!”
The husband has been on the defensive, but now his pulse rate is up. He has tried to do the loving thing, and all his wife can do is say nasty things.
“You know what? The way you’re talking I’m
glad
I got you a birthday card for your anniversary!” And with that brilliant parting shot, he storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Approximately two minutes have passed since he handed her the card. This couple, a husband and wife who truly love each other, have come home expecting to spend a wonderful, romantic evening together. Instead, they end up stomping to opposite ends of the house, staring out the windows into the darkness, wondering how it had ever come to this, and thinking,
This is crazy!
When counseling couples, I often ask, “What causes fights and quarrels among you?”(James 4:1 NIV).
This story is based on an actual incident, and I have collected many others like it from couples Sarah and I have counseled. Angry exchanges are caused when the husband appears careless, depriving his wife of love, and when the wife reacts with criticism and complaints that are vehement, depriving the husband of respect. And why should she be respectful? The stupid oaf doesn’t deserve her respect!
“ALL YOU WANT ME FOR IS SEX!”
Here’s one more example. The husband is gone for a week on a business trip. As his plane lands, he starts envisioning a romantic sexual evening with his wife, so he hurries home as quickly as he can. As he walks in the door, his wife’s first words are, “What are you doing home so early? Well, since you’re here, I need you to pick up the kids from school. And don’t forget, we have parent-teacher meetings this evening. Oh, yes . . . I want to talk to you about Billy. The teacher called today and said he’s been showing off and distracting his friends in class. And on the way to the school, can you pick up my clothes at the cleaners? Oh, I almost forgot. Dinner will be late because my sister is dropping over for coffee.”
So much for the romantic evening planned by our knight of the business road who has wound up playing second fiddle to the kids, the cleaning, and his wife’s sister. On his way out the back door he calls sarcastically over his shoulder, “Great to see you after a week!”
His wife is bothered by his sarcastic tone, but just as he walks out the phone rings and she doesn’t have time to follow him outside to ask him what he meant. Later, during the parent-teacher meetings, she senses he is still angry, but on the way home she says nothing. She is exhausted from all the week’s activities, and she is upset because he has never asked her once about all she has had to deal with. She wonders what right he has to be upset with her when
he
is the one being unreasonable.
As they retire into bed that night, the husband decides that he will “make up” with his wife in the most obvious and natural way. As he reaches to rub her back, which is usually a good way to get started, she groans, “Don’t. I’m too tired.”
Angrily, he rolls away from her without saying a word. Wounded by his anger, she says, “You’re so insensitive!”
In disbelief, he replies, “I can’t believe you said that. I’ve been gone for a week. I come home and instead of any kind of greeting, you just go on about the kids and your sister. When I try to get close, you tell me you’re too tired. And then
you
call
me
insensitive! Am I just a meal ticket to you?”
By now the wife is very hurt, and she retorts, “You never asked once how I was doing. The only time you get interested in me it’s for sex!”
“I was gone a week! When we were first married and I had to travel, you couldn’t wait to see me get home. You’d greet me at the door with a smile and a kiss. Now you simply look up and say, ‘Why are you home so early?’ Thanks. That makes my day.”