the battles, but deep down she knows she is losing the war.
WHAT IF YOU’RE AFRAID TO TAKE THE RISK?
But suppose she attends a Love and Respect Conference and learns what can happen if she begins showing her husband unconditional respect. She sees a glimmer of hope, but possibly she is afraid to “take the risk.” I talk to many wives who find themselves in this state of mind after hearing our message for the first time. A wife wrote, “I am willing to try this approach as a key to improve my marriage relationship. It’s a risk because I do not know what my husband’s response will be. I am holding God’s hand and trusting him.”
In ages past, wives were “holy women . . . who hoped in God” (1 Peter 3:5), and today God calls wives to do the same.
To this dear woman, and to all others like her, I say taking the risk is the way to achieving your goal! If a wife can trust her husband’s basic goodwill and his good intentions (even though he may be acting unloving at times), she can turn her marriage around, as the following reports testify. One woman wrote to admit she was sad because she had been married twenty-two years and was just starting to understand the Love and Respect message. She said:
I wrote my husband two letters about why I respected him. I am amazed at how it has softened him in his response to me. I have prayed for years that my husband would love me, and speak my love language. But when I begin to speak his language, then he responds with what I have wanted.
Another wife who had attended our Love and Respect Conference with her husband wrote:
I am nearly in shock at the changes in my husband in the last several days. To give you some background . . . we had a major fight last January and Round Two came in May. That was when he told me he didn’t know how he felt about me, and didn’t know what our future was together. Talk about a Crazy Cycle! We had jumped on and were running to our death.
The thing that struck me was your comment that a man can feel the loss of respect so deeply but not be able to give voice or vocabulary as to what is wrong. As a man who is not given to voicing his emotions much on a good day, I believe this is how my husband was affected. He was able to tell me I had pushed him too hard, but I didn’t understand what button I had pushed. As a result, a lot of my efforts to reach out over the last six months backfired.
So, on New Year’s Eve I left a card in his lunch box. Nothing mushy, just a “You give me many reasons to smile” message, to which I added “and many things about you I respect,” then I said thanks for Christmas and Happy New Year. The next day he got up from the table and brought a chair for me! This last Sunday he suggested going to a movie in the evening, sat and talked before the movie started, proposed going to a musical in town next week. In general, he has been much more open and communicative. . . .
While it would be simplistic and untrue to say all our problems are magically solved, there is a bridge between us that did not exist a week ago. I have yet to hear the “L” word from his lips, but his actions are such that I know it still exists in his heart, and I intend, with God’s help, to fan that flame as much as possible.
Following are comments from three different women who have also discovered the power of respecting their husbands:
I didn’t know something from God could be so easy. I have believed in God my whole life [but] I was not taught this before. But it does make so much sense. If you respect your husband, he will love you. It may not always be in the ways I love him but he does in his own special way. I thank God every day for letting me learn this.
I was so “in the dark” about a man’s number one need being respect . . . even over love. Now, instead of just telling him that I love him, I have begun telling him what I appreciate and admire about him. He eats it up!
A close friend called to tell me God wanted
WHAT IF YOU’RE AFRAID TO TAKE THE RISK?
But suppose she attends a Love and Respect Conference and learns what can happen if she begins showing her husband unconditional respect. She sees a glimmer of hope, but possibly she is afraid to “take the risk.” I talk to many wives who find themselves in this state of mind after hearing our message for the first time. A wife wrote, “I am willing to try this approach as a key to improve my marriage relationship. It’s a risk because I do not know what my husband’s response will be. I am holding God’s hand and trusting him.”
In ages past, wives were “holy women . . . who hoped in God” (1 Peter 3:5), and today God calls wives to do the same.
To this dear woman, and to all others like her, I say taking the risk is the way to achieving your goal! If a wife can trust her husband’s basic goodwill and his good intentions (even though he may be acting unloving at times), she can turn her marriage around, as the following reports testify. One woman wrote to admit she was sad because she had been married twenty-two years and was just starting to understand the Love and Respect message. She said:
I wrote my husband two letters about why I respected him. I am amazed at how it has softened him in his response to me. I have prayed for years that my husband would love me, and speak my love language. But when I begin to speak his language, then he responds with what I have wanted.
Another wife who had attended our Love and Respect Conference with her husband wrote:
I am nearly in shock at the changes in my husband in the last several days. To give you some background . . . we had a major fight last January and Round Two came in May. That was when he told me he didn’t know how he felt about me, and didn’t know what our future was together. Talk about a Crazy Cycle! We had jumped on and were running to our death.
The thing that struck me was your comment that a man can feel the loss of respect so deeply but not be able to give voice or vocabulary as to what is wrong. As a man who is not given to voicing his emotions much on a good day, I believe this is how my husband was affected. He was able to tell me I had pushed him too hard, but I didn’t understand what button I had pushed. As a result, a lot of my efforts to reach out over the last six months backfired.
So, on New Year’s Eve I left a card in his lunch box. Nothing mushy, just a “You give me many reasons to smile” message, to which I added “and many things about you I respect,” then I said thanks for Christmas and Happy New Year. The next day he got up from the table and brought a chair for me! This last Sunday he suggested going to a movie in the evening, sat and talked before the movie started, proposed going to a musical in town next week. In general, he has been much more open and communicative. . . .
While it would be simplistic and untrue to say all our problems are magically solved, there is a bridge between us that did not exist a week ago. I have yet to hear the “L” word from his lips, but his actions are such that I know it still exists in his heart, and I intend, with God’s help, to fan that flame as much as possible.
Following are comments from three different women who have also discovered the power of respecting their husbands:
I didn’t know something from God could be so easy. I have believed in God my whole life [but] I was not taught this before. But it does make so much sense. If you respect your husband, he will love you. It may not always be in the ways I love him but he does in his own special way. I thank God every day for letting me learn this.
I was so “in the dark” about a man’s number one need being respect . . . even over love. Now, instead of just telling him that I love him, I have begun telling him what I appreciate and admire about him. He eats it up!
A close friend called to tell me God wanted
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