Sex Life: Respect in Marriage

"However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." (Eph. 5:33)

Love and Respect
by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs

Introduction: Love Alone is Not Enough

I wrote this book out of desperation that was turned into inspiration. As a pastor, I counseled married couples and could not solve their problems. The major problem I heard from wives was, “He doesn’t love me.” Many husbands failed to deliver. But as I kept studying Scripture and counseling couples, I finally saw the other half of the equation. Husbands weren’t saying it much, but they were thinking, she doesn't respect me. Husbands are made to be respected, want respect, and expect respect. Many wives fail to deliver. The result is that five out of ten marriages land in the divorce court (and that includes evangelical Christians.)

The Simple Secret to a Better Marriage

"How can I get my husband to love me as much as I love him?” This was the basic question I heard from wife after wife who came to me for counseling during the almost twenty years I pastored a growing congregation. My heart broke for wives as they wept and told me their stories. Women are so tender. On many occasions I sat there with tears rolling down my cheeks. At the same time I became irked with husbands. Why couldn’t they see what they were doing to their wives? Was there some way I could help wives motivate these husbands to love them more?

I felt all this deeply because I had been a child of an unhappy home. My parents divorced when I was one. Later they remarried each other, but when I was five, they separated again. They came back together when I was in third grade, and my childhood years were filled with memories of yelling and unsettling tension. I saw and heard things that are permanently etched in my soul, and I would cry myself to sleep at times…

As I look back on how my parents lived a life of almost constant conflict, I can see the root issue of their unhappiness. It wasn’t hard to see that my mom was crying out for love and my dad desperately wanted respect.

I finally saw the other half of the equation. Husbands weren’t saying it much, but they were thinking, she doesn't respect me.

Mom taught acrobatics, tap dance, and swimming, which gave her a good income and enabled her to live independently of Dad’s resources. Dad was left feeling that Mom could get along fine without him, and she would often send him that message. She made financial decisions without consulting him, which made him feel insignificant, as if he didn’t matter. Because he was offended, he would react to her unloving ways. Dad was sure that Mom did not respect him. Dad would get angy over certain things, none of which I am able to recall. Mom’s spirit would be crushed, and she would just exit the room. This dynamic between the two of them was my way of life in childhood and into my teenage years.

As a teenage I heard the gospel—that God loved me, He had a plan for my life, and I needed to ask forgiveness for my sins to receive Christ into my heart and experience eternal life. I did just that, and my whole life changed when I became a a follower of Jesus.

The “Secret” Hidden in Ephesians 5:33

In the beginning, when I was struggling to find help for other marriages as well as for my own, I was not searching for any “Love and Respect Connection.” But that connection surfaced as I pondered what Ephesians 5:33 is saying. My thought process went something like this: “A husband is to obey the command to love even if his wife does not obey this command to respect, and a wife is to obey the command to respect even if the husband does not obey the command to love.”

So far, so good. Then I reasoned even further: “A husband is even called to love a disrespectful wife, and a wife is called to respect an unloving husband. There is no justification for a husband to say, ‘I will love my wife after she respects me’ nor for a wife to say, ‘I will respect my husband after he loves me...’ "

The Love and Respect Connection is clearly within Scripture, but so is the constant threat that the connection can be strained or even broken. And then came what I call the “aha” moment: this thing triggers itself. Without love, she reacts without respect. Without respect, he reacts without love—ad nauseam. Everywhere I share my theory, husbands and wives immediately understand. They see that if they don’t learn how to control the Crazy Cycle, it will just go round and round and where it stops nobody knows. To put this book in brief outline form, I want to help couples:

• Control the Craziness (The Crazy Cycle)
  
• Energize Each Other with Love and Respect (The Energizing Cycle)
  
• Enjoy the Rewards of a Godly Marriage (The Rewarded Cycle)

Respect—Unique Feature of This Book

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 [my wife] 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…

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.

This excerpt is from Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.

Have you read this book? What impressed you about it?

You may be familiar with John Gray PhD’s secular Mars and Venus series. Love and Respect is similar, but Dr. Eggerich approaches marriage from a decidedly Christian perspective. Visit Dr. Eggerich's website before you buy; he presents much of the same material from this book online for FREE.

For a review of the Love and Respect marriage seminar, visit an amazing missionary Mom at Livesay Haiti Weblog. If you’re “unequally yoked,” I recommend you visit Lynn’s new blog, Spiritually Unequal Marriage.

Photos courtesy of Flickr

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