Love and Respect (22 page)

“Keep me close to yourself like the ring on your finger”(Song of Solomon 8:6 NIRV).

Women are the ones who have babies, and that’s one reason that birthdays are a big deal to them. For nine months she is asked, “When is the due date?” Birth is part of the culture of women. Only women give birth. As Jeremiah observed, “Ask now, and see, if a male can give birth” (Jeremiah 30:6). In a woman’s mind, who could possibly forget a birthday? She never would.

Much the same way, a marriage date is etched in the woman’s soul. Since childhood, your wife dreamed of the wedding day as she played dress-up and sang, “Here Comes the Bride!” Even today, your wife will show wedding pictures to her friends. They will talk about her dress, her hairdo back then,
etc.
Husbands, however, never played dress-up in tuxes. Husbands do not say, “Hey, Harry, let me show you what the guys wore in my wedding.” This is a graphic illustration of pink and blue, and you should be aware of it. For your wife, there are no more important dates than your wedding anniversary and her birthday, as well as the birthdays of others in the family. All of these dates are opportunities for you to show her that you love and esteem her by remembering them and celebrating them with her.

“Does a young woman forget all about her jewelry? Does a bride forget her wedding jewels?”(Jeremiah 2:32 NIRV).

How you celebrate her birthday or your anniversary is an art, not a science. The scientific approach puts a lot of stock in the material, the expensive. Suppose one man buys his wife a Mercedes for her birthday (I can think of three men I know who did just that). The y other man takes his wife out to the park and they go for a nice walk and share feelings of love and closeness as he tells her how much she means to him. On the way back to the car, he finds a small, flat rock, picks it up, and brings it home. Then he writes a little poem or some other notation on it and presents it to her as a memento of the walk they took that day. Whose wife will appreciate her gift the most?

The natural male (blue) inclination is to think that the expensive gift would be far more meaningful to a wife. After all, if you bought another man a Mercedes, he’d go around telling all of his friends, “Wow! What a great guy Joe is. I can’t believe it. He gave me this wonderful car!”

But when you buy a woman a Mercedes, she is much more likely to say to her girlfriends, “Look, he got me a Mercedes. I wonder if he is trying to buy me off or something.”

Let’s get back to that little rock. When she’s ninety-three and you’ve been dead for a decade, what is she going to keep on her mantel? A picture of the Mercedes? Absolutely not! She’s going to keep that rock, because it is symbolic of a time when her husband gave her special attention, devotion, and esteem.

One husband attended our conference with his wife of twenty-four years and quickly grasped the power of “little, thoughtful things.” His wife wrote:

Valentine’s Day was very unique. . . . I woke up to a candy scavenger hunt. My husband had taken the time to write four short poems and attached each to a baggie filled with four different kinds of Valentine candy. . . . It started in the bathroom . . . and had clues of where to find the next. I just giggled around the house, it was so fun. . . . That night my husband made reservations to go to a Valentine supper. A classic guitarist played; they took our picture and put it in a special “thank you” frame from the restaurant. We feasted on wonderful food in a very relaxed atmosphere. It was absolutely one of the most memorable evenings! Thank you for encouraging my husband to love me.

This woman’s words illustrate a key truth: the expense of a gift is secondary to the thought your wife senses you put into the gift, card, or activity. God designed your wife to be touched by things that symbolize your love and show that you treasure her. She wants to know you think about her. She wants that to come from your heart without any prompting. Truly, it is the thought that counts!

DOES YOUR WIFE EVER WANT YOU TO READ HER MIND?

The Valentine story above is what can happen when all goes well. Sometimes, however, Murphy’s Law kicks in—at least a little bit. To illustrate, I’ll stay with the theme of taking your wife out to dinner. Suppose it’s your fifth anniversary and you come home and say, “Honey, I want to take you out for dinner for our anniversary. Where do you want to go?”

She says, “Oh, I don’t know.”

You respond, “No, I really want to take you wherever you want. Where would you like to go?”

She says again, “I don’t know; why don’t you decide?”

“You want me to decide?”

“Yes, I do.”

“But I don’t want to decide. I want to take you where
you
want to go.”

“No, I want you to decide,” your wife insists.

Okay, you decide: “Well, I just read that the Freeway Steak House has the best beef in town. Why don’t we try it?”

And she says, “I don’t want to go there.”

A lot of husbands—maybe most husbands—have been in situations similar to this. At this point you can go in one of two directions: You can process your wife’s seemingly maddening response by getting irritated and even angry. Equipped to see and hear in blue, you can think that your wife should
know
she can’t be so unreasonable, illogical, and provoking. If she wants to ruin the evening, she has both of you halfway to the Crazy Cycle already.

But there is another choice. You can weight the scales in favor of the Energizing Cycle. You can remember that your wife sees and hears in pink. You can adjust your blue sunglasses and blue hearing aids and be patient. Instead of getting irritated, you seek a little more information.

Now in truth, your wife really wants you to sort of “read her mind.” She is thinking,
If he loved me as much as I love him, he’d figure out where I want to go without my having to tell him. That’s what I’d do for him. Why can’t he do that for me? I want to know he really thinks about me as I think about him and feels about me as I feel about him.

Every husband has been expected to read his wife’s mind. Though mind reading seldom is possible, there are ways to make good guesses. You can say, “Okay, the Freeway Steak House is pretty limited, just steak and ribs. How about . . . ?” and then you name two or three other restaurants that have ambience and atmosphere, as well as a broader menu. Chances are you’ll hit the jackpot with one of these and she’ll say, “Okay, that sounds good.” Your fifth anniversary is saved from disaster and, even more important, your wife feels that you hold her in high esteem—that you really treasure her and want her to be happy.

There are other situations, however, where your wife doesn’t want you to read her mind, but she still strongly disagrees with you. This can get a little sticky. How do you treat her with esteem if her opinion conflicts with yours (or possibly even sounds a little wacky)? Because males tend to be so bottom-line, it would be easy to sound harsh without even realizing it. Actually, there are three ways you can answer a wife when you don’t agree with her, and they can all keep her esteem intact. First, you can simply say, “Honey, thanks for sharing your opinion.” Second, you might say, “Honey, let me think about that.” That tells her you are processing her ideas. Third, and possibly best, you say, “Sweetheart, even though I don’t feel the same way you do about this, I value your opinion and I trust your heart.”

THANK HER FOR ALL SHE DOES

One other way to esteem your wife is to let her know you really appreciate all she does. You may have heard the story of the husband who came home from work to find bikes and scooters blocking the driveway, the house in shambles, dirty dishes stacked in the sink, dirty laundry piled up, pieces of clothing scattered everywhere, and his two preschool children drawing on the walls. He finally found his wife, asleep in bed. He woke her up and asked, “Honey, the place is a disaster, the kids are running wild—what is going on?!”

She looked at him with a wan, tired smile. “Well, you know how you always come home and you ask me what I did all day?”

He says, “Yeah . . . ”

“Well, today I didn’t do it.”

Esteem your wife for what she does, but don’t overlook cherishing her simply for who she is. One woman said to her husband, “I just got off the phone with my sister. She’s incredible. She tells me that she helped her husband build a back porch on their house this summer.

“Rejoice in the wife of your youth”(Proverbs 5:18b).

She also made a rocking chair, and she’s in an exotic foods cooking class. She’s always doing something, making something. I feel so inadequate when I talk with her. What do
I
make?”

Her husband turned to her and said, “You make me happy.”

Bingo! Bonus points for that husband! He knows how to esteem his wife. Following are more ideas on how to esteem, cherish, and honor the most important person in your life.

YOUR WIFE WILL FEEL ESTEEMED WHEN . . .

• you say, “I’m so proud of the way you handled that.”

• you speak highly of her in front of others.

• you open the door for her.

• you try something new with her.

• you give her encouragement or praise with kindness and enthusiasm.

• you notice something different about her hair or clothes.

• you are physically affectionate with her in public.

• you teach the children to show her and others respect.

• you value her opinion in the gray areas as not wrong but just different—and valid.

• you choose family outings over “guy things.”

• you make her feel first in importance.

• you are proud of her and all she does.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
C-H-A-I-R-S: HOW TO SPELL
RESPECT TO YOUR HUSBAND

(Note to husbands: This chapter and the six to follow are “for wives only,” but husbands are invited to read along.)

L
adies, we have taken your husbands through C-O-U-P-L-E to help them become more loving men. Now it’s your turn. In the next six chapters, we will take you through the acronym C-H-A-I-R-S to give you practical, biblical ways that will help you become more respectful women.

Wives do not need a lot of coaching on being loving. It is something God built into them, and they do it naturally. However, they do need help with respect. Part 1 contained many letters from wives who discovered the tremendous power in giving their husbands unconditional respect. Admittedly, this is a foreign term to many women, and even though you have bought into the idea that your husband wants and needs respect, it is still a difficult concept to practice.

“A wise woman builds her house.But a foolish woman tears hers down”

(Proverbs 14:1 NIRV).

This wife’s letter represents how many women feel as they attempt to get off the Crazy Cycle and on the Energizing Cycle:

Applying respect in my marriage is quite foreign and I have really had to work at it. I always thought I just needed to love more. What a revelation for me, because loving more wasn’t helping. Thank you again! I am so excited about where our marriage will go from here as we apply what we have learned. I have a new energy for our relationship.

Providing more energy for your marriage is exactly what the C-H-A-I-R-S chapters are all about. C-H-A-I-R-S is an acronym that stands for six major values that your husband holds:
C
onquest,
H
ierarchy,
A
uthority,
I
nsight,
R
elationship, and
S
exuality. Each of these values will be covered in a brief chapter. In
C
onquest, you will learn to appreciate his desire to work and achieve.
H
ierarchy deals with appreciating his desire to protect and provide.
A
uthority covers appreciating his desire to serve and to lead.
I
nsight touches on appreciating his desire to analyze and counsel.
R
elationship helps you understand his desire for shoulder-to-shoulder friendship.
S
exuality explains his desire for sexual intimacy. In these six areas, you will learn how to spell “respect” to your husband. (For how to share your needs with each other, see appendix C.)

Granted, “unconditional respect” almost sounds to some women like an oxymoron. After all, he should
earn
respect, not be given respect unconditionally, or so many women seem to think. Ever since I have started teaching the Love and Respect Connection, I have struggled with helping wives see what unconditional respect can do for their husbands—and their marriages. Giving your husband unconditional respect is the clear path to receiving unconditional love from him, but it is still hard for women to grasp. Here are reports from two wives who are reaping the benefits:

When a wife “is clothed with . . . dignity,” she carries herself honorably and comes across respectfully (Proverbs 31:25 NIV).

I kept trying to get some attention and affection. . . . One night a few weeks ago, he said to me for the hundredth time, “You never listen to me” as an explanation for that month’s ice cold treatment. That night I relistened to your “man” talk and I finally understood what he meant . . . what he was getting was a whole lot of badgering in [my] attempt to get closer to him. I immediately changed my approach [and] got very conscious of my choices and outcomes and the result has been wonderful . . . he has been very loving.

I am thankful for this concept of unconditional respect, because now I feel I can return, in a way that is meaningful to him, all the love he gives to me. . . . As a martial artist, I have learned a lot about respect, just didn’t realize it was a language. . . . I never knew it was a need, let alone a language. . . . I am learning to communicate more effectively with my teenage son as well, thanks to this new awareness of respect.

How to Use the “Respect Test” with Your Husband

When I began teaching the Love and Respect Connection, I would talk to various groups and quote them the key passages: Ephesians 5:33 (“The wife must respect her husband” NIV) and 1 Peter 3:1–2 (“Wives, be submissive to your own husbands . . . as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior”). But, frankly, many women would dismiss these verses almost flippantly by pointing out that Paul was a male and so was Peter. How could they know how a woman felt?