Love and Respect (14 page)

It is funny, I feel as though I should have done more work to pick up the pieces of my heart and forgive him. God just did it all, and we never feel worthy of those kinds of miracles. . . . My husband is in love with me again, and has truly had a repentant heart. His affair is long over, and she is history completely, period. We are still in counseling, because there is so much we still need to do to repair a marriage that was never the best it could be. I would say our marriage is better now than it ever has been, and yet we still have a long way to go. God has helped me with my pain, and He has healed me so well.

It worked. I did win him back. When you told me I could, I really wondered if that was possible [but] God has changed my husband more than I have ever expected and I hope it continues. I have changed, too. I am finally seeing in me the wife that I always wanted to be.

There are two things in this lady’s letter that are well worth noting. One is that she is amazed at how God put forgiveness in her heart as she committed to obeying His Word. She did not have to work at forgiving her husband; she only had to work on obeying the Lord, and then the forgiveness flowed into her heart. Second, she sees that she is now becoming the wife she “always wanted to be.” She realizes that, while he had logs in his eye, she had her own to contend with. Forgiving is the direct opposite of judging. Nothing is easier than judging, nothing is harder than forgiving, and nothing can reap more blessings.

While wives may have trouble with forgiving unloving husbands, these same husbands may be tempted to think there is no way they can ever win—that nobody could love the woman they are married to. But that kind of thinking is a dead end. There is a way to win and to “love that woman” after all, as we will see below.

IF YOU FAIL TO LOVE HER, REBOUND!

Many basketball coaches put almost as much emphasis on rebounding as they do on shooting. Great players always chase down rebounds at both ends of the court. They pick up on the angle of the missed shot and position themselves to be in the right spot when the ball comes down off the rim. In many cases, after recovering the ball, they score a basket and get fouled in the process. Any coach will tell you good rebounding will keep his team in the game.

The analogy is obvious. The husband who is starting to “get it” about the Love and Respect Connection, and who seeks his wife’s forgiveness, can’t let a few misses stop him. Perhaps you have failed again to decode her deeper cry. You have failed again by reacting unlovingly to her contempt. In fact, you got tired of all the verbal blows and you stonewalled, withdrawing from her constant criticism.

To rebound after being unloving, “confess your sins to one another”

(James 5:16).

Never give up. When you miss, rebound! Go after it again. You can and will win your wife’s heart, even on the heels of a miserable first performance, or a second, or a third. Whenever you forget and react in an unloving way, rebound. Tell her, “I’m sorry. Will you forgive me for reacting so unlovingly?”

Right now husbands reading this may be thinking,
Emerson, that’s okay for you, but you’ve never had to face what I face.
Well, let’s look at my record. I’m supposed to be the Love and Respect poster child. I have preached the Love and Respect message for more than five years, but I still have moments when I get angry and withdraw. I am still only a man, and the flesh can be weak no matter how much experience you think you have.

And through the years I have had more pressure than some men. There were times when, despite all of what I had been telling seminar goers about the Love and Respect Connection, I would become angry when Sarah would criticize me, and I would try to stonewall her. She would simply follow me through the house, saying, “What would you say to a husband who was acting like you? How would you counsel
him
to treat me?”

Good grief ! Stop the planet, I want to get off ! How embarrassing! How awkward! How unfair!

At some point, however, I have to calm myself down. I have to grow up—be mature! Like the Fonz in
Happy Days,
I try to mouth, “I was wrrooo . . . I was wrrroooo . . . I was
wrong
.”

I don’t like to be disrespected and then have to apologize for being unloving any more than the next guy. It’s not normal! But I know from personal experience that it is possible to fail, even as a so-called expert, and still recover. I know what it is like to rebound when you seem unable to “make any shots” on a certain day. As I prayed and sought answers to my own weaknesses, I found help in the Scriptures. Malachi tells us, “Take heed then to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth” (2:15). I also found real solace in Proverbs 24:16: “For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again.”

None of us is perfect. We all blow it. As a man takes baby steps toward a better marriage through the Love and Respect Connection, he may find himself falling seven times and possibly more. But he should take a lesson from one of his own children when that child was learning to walk. No toddler falls the first time and stays on his bottom. He gets up and falls down, gets up and falls down, gets up and falls down, gets up and . . . keeps walking. Eventually, he figures it out.

Husbands, some of you have stuff from the past. Bad habits exist. The sins of your fathers are visited upon you (see Exodus 20:5). You will slip and not think about decoding her message at the moment because she feels so offensive. You might even say, “Drop it,” and then you will try to move on without thinking more about it.

While God is gracious and kind, He knows that old habits don’t die unless they are dealt with. It is in moments like these that He will speak to you, saying, “Go back. You honestly forgot to decode her message. You responded like a male. You thought you were doing the honorable thing by refusing to engage her. But that isn’t going to work now. It won’t stop the craziness. I want you to hear her deeper cry and move toward her. Allow her to vent. Embrace her negativity and anger.”

If she has something against you, “go and be reconciled” (Matthew 5:24 NIV).

If you can do that—if you can take the hit and keep coming—then you’ll be able to say something like this: “Honey, I’m sorry for coming across so unlovingly. When you come at me like that, it makes me angry because I feel you don’t respect me. But I want to change. Please help me.”

When his wife comes at him with disrespect flashing in her eyes and venom shooting from her tongue, every husband has two choices: (1) defend his pride by firing back venom of his own or stonewalling her, or (2) try to hear his wife’s cry and respond with unconditional love.

I have made the decision that, with God’s help, I will always choose option 2: try to hear Sarah’s cry and respond with unconditional love. But even though our marriage is much better and stronger than ever, I still miss the loving mark now and then. And when I miss—even ever so slightly—I rebound. After calming down (usually in a few minutes), I say, “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been unloving.” And, of course, from the other side of our marriage, that wonderful woman who I always knew would be my friend, responds and says she’s sorry for her disrespect. (Best of all, she no longer follows me around the house wanting to know how I would advise a husband who was acting like an unloving schmuck!)

MARRIAGE—A TWO-BECOME-ONE PROPOSITION

It is my hope that husbands and wives will use the insights in this chapter, as well as in chapters 3 through 6, to find the courage and motivation to try the Love and Respect Connection to stop the Crazy Cycle. It is true that unconditional respect by wives for husbands is the part of our message that is seen as new and even revolutionary. Respect for husbands has been there all the time, nestled in a short phrase in Ephesians 5:33, and for some reason we in the church have missed it over all these years. But now the secret seems to be out. As the wife sees her husband’s goodwill and forgives the past, many of her disrespectful feelings can leave her. Even if some remain, her respectful actions can empower her to influence the marriage in the direction she longs for it to go.

In these several chapters I have tried to balance the scales and make husbands aware of the tremendous power that can be theirs if they decide to reach out with understanding, engage their wives even when being dealt verbal deathblows, and rebound when they fail to unconditionally love as God directs. Yes, a marriage can survive, and even improve somewhat, with one spouse carrying most of the load, but God’s design is that marriage be a “two-become-one” proposition. As husbands and wives learn to respect each other and love each other, miracles do, indeed, happen. Bad marriages become good, boring marriages become exciting, and good marriages become better and better.

One husband whose “great marriage” became much better wrote to tell us of being married for twenty-three years, having wonderful children, and being able to start a television and radio ministry to families. But something was missing, and he shared with his wife that God had been moving in his heart to take a different approach to working with couples in crisis. He could see that the very real differences between men and women were not being recognized in a society that was out of balance in the ways it was training men and women to think from an early age. He and his wife discussed his greatest need (respect) and her greatest need (love). Then, a few days later, they heard about the Love and Respect Connection on the radio! They ordered some of our materials, and after going over them, they realized that God was doing some big things in their lives by “divine appointment.” His letter went on to say:

Even though, on the outside to many, it looked as if we had a great marriage (we do), there were several areas in our marriage that I had secretly given up on. On a scale of 1-10 we were living with a 5-6 marriage most of the time. We both wanted a marriage that was characterized by being in the 9-10 (at least some of the time). After reading your book, my wife and I left for several days, and the best I can describe it, God brought the greatest breakthrough I have seen in my relationship with my wife. Somehow God softened our hearts as we began to really look at this Love and Respect issue with more priority. This should come as no surprise, but it is so much easier to teach what is right and true than to completely live it for yourself. Now my wife and I continue to grow even closer and I think our effectiveness in administering to couples in need is being greatly impacted.

We also get many letters from couples whose bad marriages have become good. For example, we heard from a wife who admitted that both she and her husband were on marriage number three. In addition, they were in recovery for alcoholism, and she had come from a broken home and had very little respect for men. After two years of this third marriage, she wasn’t sure it would last either. She had been reluctant to marry again after two failures, but after meeting with a counselor, she wanted to “do it God’s way this time.” Then her husband was injured and needed surgeries that kept him out of work for two years. The financial strain was terrific in trying to care for a blended family of five teenage boys. Her husband seemed to have no self-respect and wasn’t acting respectful or loving toward her. She felt if she just loved him more it would work, but it didn’t. They tried studying videos and workbooks on marriage, as well as counseling, but they couldn’t turn around their Crazy Cycle. Feeling trapped and helpless, this wife cried herself to sleep at least two times a week and could not imagine going on like this much longer, when she heard about our book,
Motivating Your Man God’s Way
. Her letter continues:

To stop the Crazy Cycle, obey God’s Word, “which also performs its work in you who believe”(1 Thessalonians 2:13).

After reading your book, I apologized to my husband and told him I had not been respectful of him and that I truly wanted to, and then I started doing just that. And, Ta Dah! It works. My gratefulness cannot be expressed. I finally “get it.” . . . Thank you for revealing to me how to respect my husband as God has commanded. I have been using respectful phrases and my attitude (and most importantly his attitude and behavior) has done a 180-degree turn. I have peace and hope that this will be our last marriage and that it will honor our God.

I especially like a letter we received from a daughter who reported on the difference that the Love and Respect message made in her parents’ marriage. Her mother told her that she just asks the Lord to change the look on her face and the feelings she has. That always works (if she keeps her mouth shut!). The daughter’s letter continued:

Anyway, my mother is doing that and my dad is confessing things from the past. She is seeing a big change in the way he is thinking and acting and it has given her hope for the future. She also says she is using the respect words and is seeing immediate results in the way my dad responds back. . . . This is awesome because they have never been able to talk serious without anger or at least volume. . . . Thank you for bringing hope to my mother and ultimately to me and my sisters.

FROM THE CRAZY CYCLE TO THE ENERGIZING CYCLE

Letters like these just keep coming. The Love and Respect Connection is stopping the Crazy Cycle in marriages all over the country. If husband and wife can commit to meeting each other’s primary needs—unconditional love for her and unconditional respect for him—they will take a giant step toward keeping the Crazy Cycle under control. Note that I did not say “getting rid of the Crazy Cycle once and for all.” As much as I wish I could give you a surefire way to do this, I can’t. All of us get on the Crazy Cycle from time to time because nobody is perfect. Sarah and I still work at controlling the Crazy Cycle because we can react negatively to each other in small and seemingly insignificant ways. She sees pink and I see blue; she hears pink and I hear blue, so conflict is bound to happen. Keeping that conflict contained and not letting it escalate is what controlling the Crazy Cycle is all about. (For ways to control the Crazy Cycle, see appendices A and B.)