Love and Respect

I finished reading Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs. He forms his thesis around Ephesians 5:33: "However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." Although you can really learn everything you need to know in the first few chapters it is worth reading the rest of the book. He gives more examples as to what he is trying to convey and ways to show love and respect to your spouse. 

Eggerichs states that love is not enough for a marriage. Yes, most everyone loves their spouse but who is to say that love it the thing that is going to hold it together? Movies and pop-culture tend to emphasize love is all you need, including the Beatles. Eggerichs claims a woman needs to respect her husband and a man needs to love his wife by submitting wholeheartedly to this Biblical design for marriage (Ephesians 5:33). According to God's word, love love love really isn't all you need. And God in a marriage is of the utmost importance. 

"The Crazy Cycle" is what Eggerichs calls the unraveling lifestyle of the 50% of marriages that end, and the other 50% that do hold on but don't completely fall off the band wagon; there is turmoil in every marriage, no one is perfect. This is when love and respect break down: the husband doesn't feel respected and he doesn't want to love and the wife doesn't feel loved therefore she won't respect. See? It's an endless cycle and without it being stopped in someway the marriage becomes hopeless. God doesn't command wives to love; women are made to love. God doesn't command husbands to respect; they are made to respect: "respect does something to the soul of a man. God made him this way." Respect is how a woman can love her husband. She can respect him in ways that are meaningful to him and he will then feel her love igniting his love for her. Or so the theory goes.

So how does a wife respect her husband? How does the husband respect the wife? Well,, Eggerichs never really gives concrete examples. I think this is the case because each person is different. Each husband wants to be respected in a different way. Each wife feels loved differently. Communication is essential. Especially when the husband and wife find themselves bickering over something such as the sock on the floor. A sock? Really? I'll admit I've done it! And an explosive argument surfaces over a stupid sock. Or does it? Eggerichs suggests the the issue here really isn't the issue. The wife doesn't feel loved because she's told the husband a million times to put the sock in the hamper. The husband doesn't feel respected because he's not incompetent of putting dirty laundry in the hamper, he might have been lost in thought at the moment, maybe over his own wife. So is it really the sock that caused all this? 

I have some of my favorite quotes for the book:

"Something in a man longs for his wife to look up to him as he fulfills (his role). And when she does, it motivates him, not because he is arrogant, but because of how God has constructed him."

My all time favorite!
"The prince goes into battle for the princess, not vice versa. Consequently, the princess does not seek to be respected as the 'head.' Instead, she yearns to be honored, valued and prized as a precious equal."
I guess I'm just a romantic at heart.