My husband and I just attended a wonderful marriage conference this past weekend! It was given by Dr. Emmerson Eggerichs (pronounced Egg-Ur-Rich) and his wife Sarah. WOW! What an amazing time of learning all about your spouse! Let me sum it up for you. Ephesians 5:33 says, "However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." (NIV) Notice the word "must". The command wasn't "Love 'em if you feel like it." or "Respect 'em if you feel like they deserve it." it was, "must love" and "must respect" UNCONDITIONALLY. There really is way too much information to go into, so I suggest you check out the link by clicking on the title of this post, or going out and buying the book. I read the book beforehand and instead of nagging my husband to read it, I thought it would be better for him to hear it LIVE. :) It was great.
Basically, there are six ways husbands can spell love to their wives, and six ways a wife can spell respect to her husband. Women need love like they need air to breathe, and men need respect like they need air to breathe. These are essential needs on both parts. The problem is that as long as women have been alive, we've been speaking through a pink megaphone, hearing through pink hearing aids, and seeing through pink glasses. Men, on the otherhand, speak through blue megaphones, hear through blue hearing aids, and see through blue glasses. I know it sounds a little childish, but so do most of our arguments when we try to communicate without understanding this concept. Men hear their own language when they talk to their guy friends, and women hear women talk when they talk to their girlfriends. Hence, we have trouble when we try to communicate with our spouse in the same way. Without even realizing it, many times the way we approach our spouse turns into an incident of "stepping on their air hose" if you will, and deflating their spirit by cutting off the flow of love or respect into their respective tanks.
Before you know it, we've jumped onto something called "The Crazy Cycle" which I'm sure you would recognize if it happened to you. For example, it's a couples' 10th anniversary and the husband goes to the card store to buy a card for his wife. He opens one up, reads it, it says everything he wants to say, so he quickly buys it and rushes home to give it to his wife. He bounds through the door and excitedly hands the card to his wife. She is so excited too that he actually remembered and was so thoughtful to buy a card. She opens the card and begins reading...quickly her expression changes and her face droops. He says, "What's the matter." and she says, "Nothing." and he says, "No honey, what's wrong? Don't you like it?" and she says, "Yeah, maybe I WOULD like it if it was my BIRTHDAY! I can't believe you were so careless as to get me a BIRTHDAY card for our ANNIVERSARY!" and before you know it, he storms off and slams the door and she storms off in the other direction and slams the door. Two, perfectly good-willed people who's anniversary is ruined by a misunderstanding.
There are several more examples but normally, in a matter of about 114 seconds any incident like this can go from a small misunderstanding to an exchange of hurtful words that ends with neither of the spouses speaking to each other for days. The point is, all of this could be avoided if we knew how to approach one another. I could go on and on, but really, there is WAY too much information and too much to explain and I kinda want to leave you hangin' so go check it out!
I can't say, "This turned our marriage around!" and all that stuff, but I will say that all married couples need reminders every now and then because we tend to get so comfortable with each other over time, and we start taking each other for granted. We get lazy and inconsiderate without even realizing it, but if we went "back to the things [we] did at first" as an old pastor of mine always used to say, we'd remember how and why we fell in love with our spouse in the first place and see that the same person is still there. Sometimes they just need to know that it's safe to step back out again.
Basically, there are six ways husbands can spell love to their wives, and six ways a wife can spell respect to her husband. Women need love like they need air to breathe, and men need respect like they need air to breathe. These are essential needs on both parts. The problem is that as long as women have been alive, we've been speaking through a pink megaphone, hearing through pink hearing aids, and seeing through pink glasses. Men, on the otherhand, speak through blue megaphones, hear through blue hearing aids, and see through blue glasses. I know it sounds a little childish, but so do most of our arguments when we try to communicate without understanding this concept. Men hear their own language when they talk to their guy friends, and women hear women talk when they talk to their girlfriends. Hence, we have trouble when we try to communicate with our spouse in the same way. Without even realizing it, many times the way we approach our spouse turns into an incident of "stepping on their air hose" if you will, and deflating their spirit by cutting off the flow of love or respect into their respective tanks.
Before you know it, we've jumped onto something called "The Crazy Cycle" which I'm sure you would recognize if it happened to you. For example, it's a couples' 10th anniversary and the husband goes to the card store to buy a card for his wife. He opens one up, reads it, it says everything he wants to say, so he quickly buys it and rushes home to give it to his wife. He bounds through the door and excitedly hands the card to his wife. She is so excited too that he actually remembered and was so thoughtful to buy a card. She opens the card and begins reading...quickly her expression changes and her face droops. He says, "What's the matter." and she says, "Nothing." and he says, "No honey, what's wrong? Don't you like it?" and she says, "Yeah, maybe I WOULD like it if it was my BIRTHDAY! I can't believe you were so careless as to get me a BIRTHDAY card for our ANNIVERSARY!" and before you know it, he storms off and slams the door and she storms off in the other direction and slams the door. Two, perfectly good-willed people who's anniversary is ruined by a misunderstanding.
There are several more examples but normally, in a matter of about 114 seconds any incident like this can go from a small misunderstanding to an exchange of hurtful words that ends with neither of the spouses speaking to each other for days. The point is, all of this could be avoided if we knew how to approach one another. I could go on and on, but really, there is WAY too much information and too much to explain and I kinda want to leave you hangin' so go check it out!
I can't say, "This turned our marriage around!" and all that stuff, but I will say that all married couples need reminders every now and then because we tend to get so comfortable with each other over time, and we start taking each other for granted. We get lazy and inconsiderate without even realizing it, but if we went "back to the things [we] did at first" as an old pastor of mine always used to say, we'd remember how and why we fell in love with our spouse in the first place and see that the same person is still there. Sometimes they just need to know that it's safe to step back out again.
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