Respect Your Husband

3 days till Valentine's Day and then I will give the marriage discussions a rest. Dr. Emerson Eggerich's book Love and Respect is one of my favorites. The theme of the book is "without love women respond disrespectfully to their husbands and without respect men respond unlovingly to their wives." The deepest need for women is to feel loved. And the deepest need for men is to feel respected.

Ephesians 5:33 says "the wife must respect her husband."

Have you had those moments when your husband says or does something unloving and you criticize him for it and rather than him saying he is sorry - it's the beginning of a big fight? You may wonder what made him fight back so hard rather than just say he was sorry. You see - when a husband suspects that you have no respect for him he gets angry. He seeks to get respect by being unloving or stonewalling you - while you seek to get love by criticizing him. And over and over you get the same outcome - a fight.

God created men to fight battles and protect the princess for honor. It is for honor that a man will run up the stairs of a burning building while everyone else is running down the stairs. When you were dating you honored him and his ideas and that is probably what made him get on one knee and propose to you. He loved how he felt when he was with you. But now - 10 years later - does he still sense that same honor or does he sense that you have no respect for him and the way he does things.

Ephesians 5:33 says "the wife must respect her husband". It does not say you must feel respect - but that you simply must respect him. When you do - you will find your husband drawing nearer to you in love. You may express your love to your husband through cooking him meals, washing his clothes and keeping the house tidy - but what truly will make him feel loved in his deepest soul is your respect. Today make this your motto "If I can't say anything respectful, I won't say anything at all."

Walk with the King,

http://www.womenlivingwell.org/