Love and Respect (7 page)

When the wife flatly says her husband will have to earn her respect before she gives him any, she leaves the husband in a lose-lose situation. Now he’s responsible for both love and respect in the relationship. He must unconditionally love his wife
and
he also must earn her respect. Is it any wonder he shuts down in the face of all that?

IT ALL GOES BACK TO PINK AND BLUE

Respect for husbands is an unfamiliar idea for many wives, but there certainly are reasons for their attitude. Part of it goes back to those pink and blue sunglasses and hearing aids. As one wife put it, “We think so differently. I don’t even relate to what he considers respect (or the lack of it).”

Another obvious reason for the respect gap in women is the crude and unloving behavior of their husbands. I am well aware that many a wife has good reasons to get in her husband’s face—I have heard it all for more than a quarter of a century. But that’s not the total picture. There is also the cultural mind-set. For the past forty years, the American church has preached unconditional love. I preached it for many years in my own church, as I remained clueless about the importance of unconditional respect. During those years I was continually frustrated as a male counselor, and so were the women who came seeking my advice. Why couldn’t husbands love their wives as their wives needed to be loved? It wasn’t that they lacked the knowledge—they showed plenty of that back in courtship days. But now that they were married the husbands seemed to lack motivation to love their wives. They seemed less energized about their marriages. Something was missing.

By ignoring unconditional respect for husbands, I had not been “accurately handling the word of truth”(2 Timothy 2:15).

Then I realized that, in stressing unconditional love, I was teaching the truth but only half the truth. Paul’s advice in Ephesians 5:25 and 28 is sound: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. . . . Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself ” (NIV). But all of the emphasis on unconditional love hadn’t motivated or equipped many men to be loving, at least not as loving as their wives would like. What was missing was that very short phrase, “the wife must respect her husband” (Ephesians 5:33 NIV).
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As I changed my message to include the whole truth—love
and
respect—I got interesting reactions. In one case I spoke twice to a group of two hundred women on the topic of respecting their husbands. I made myself available for a third talk, but the leadership of the group declined. Instead, they asked a female friend of mine to address the topic: “How to Love Your Husband.” My friend had heard me speak, and she dropped me a note: “That was your point! How to love your husband.” She could not believe how this group of women had missed it. The way to fully love a husband is to respect him in ways that are meaningful to him.

I survived being “fired” by that group of women and went on to spread the message of unconditional respect everywhere I could. And many wives are getting that message, including one who reported:

I have led several studies on being a godly wife and have read and hopefully applied lots of biblical marriage resources. But I knew something was still missing even in my own relationship. . . . I could not figure out why my husband was staying somewhat aggravated with me and I was definitely not receiving the love and affection that I so desired. Now I realize that I have been showing him disrespect without ever dreaming that was what was being communicated. . . . I tried . . . respect . . . I was amazed at the result. My husband is definitely not a sweet talker. He is an outdoorsman who hunts all over the world. That’s our business. Anyway, I thought this feels kind of silly but I said to him, “Honey, I couldn’t sleep very well last night so I spent a lot of time thinking of all the things I respect about you” (which was true). He did not respond but I felt a softening in the air. Two days later, after spending all day in the duck blind with several men, he said to me, “I missed you today. I wish you could have gone with me. I thought all day about what a sweet girl you are.” I nearly laughed out loud—he called me a sweet girl—I’m a grandmother—but, oh, it is so fun to feel loved. I am now aware of so many ways that I was communicating disrespect without meaning to.

Respect does something to the soul of a man. God made him that way.

WHAT ABOUT ARETHA AND R-E-S-P-E-C-T?

I sometimes get the question, “You say women need love and men need respect. Isn’t the opposite just as true? Don’t gals need respect and guys need love?” My answer is, of course, women need respect and guys need love, but I’m talking about the primary drive in each sex. Sometimes this gets mixed up. Back in the late 1960s, when the feminist movement
²
was hitting its stride, Aretha Franklin released a hit record entitled “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” which clearly sent the message that all women were asking for was a little respect when they got home. Respect is what women needed, and they “had to have it.”

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T” became something of a theme song for many women, but what most of them did not realize is that the song was really written by a man—Otis Redding—two years before Aretha ever sang it. Otis released the song as a single on August 15, 1965, as his message to his wife. Does the irony of this strike you as it does me? Aretha had the right to sing “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” from a female point of view, of course. A woman does need respect, and if a man loves her properly, she will get that respect. But the primary meaning in Otis Redding’s song is a cry from a
man’s
deepest soul that says respect is what he needs and he’s “got to have it.”

Aretha Franklin’s hit song notwithstanding, I still believe that women want love far more than respect and men want respect far more than love. I’ll illustrate that from two rather divergent areas: the greeting card industry and the military. They are very different parts of our society, but both serve as examples of men’s and women’s deepest values.

GREETING CARDS ARE ALL ABOUT LOVE

Greeting cards are a clue into the minds and needs of women. Market studies show that, overwhelmingly, the majority of cards in the United States are purchased by women and given to women. Greeting cards are a multimillion-dollar business. Now, the card companies are not interested in ideology. They don’t want to change anyone’s mind. They are out to make money, so they produce what sells. Knowing that, I challenge you to find a card from a husband to a wife that says, “Baby, I really respect you.” You won’t see it. That card isn’t out there, because that is not what a wife wants to hear. Women are locked into love. Love is their mother tongue. I’m not criticizing that; I’m just pointing out the way God designed women. In fact, if love weren’t the woman’s deepest value, this world would be in very sad shape. Women are this way, and we men rejoice.

Unfortunately, by that same token, you won’t find any greeting cards that wives send to their husbands, saying, “Baby, I really respect you.” Why not? Because they don’t sell either. When women buy greeting cards for their husbands, they want to express love for them; they don’t even think about respect. Sadly, the deepest yearning of husbands goes unmet because wives (and the card publishers) are locked into relaying sentiments of love.

Those of you who have a son, consider how sad he may be never to hear from his wife, “I really respect you.” A need created in his soul by God will be overlooked because certain voices claim he doesn’t deserve it unless he meets and maintains your daughter-in-law’s romantic expectations. If his marriage is typical, after the first year, he will know his wife loves him but will feel she neither likes him nor admires him for who he is as a human being. If the pattern is like most, she will spend her energy seeking to help change him by her loving criticism and complaints, which eventually feel like contempt to him.

RESPECT IS A MAN’S DEEPEST VALUE

Women need to learn how to understand and use the word
respect
because, in truth, respect is a man’s deepest value. Ever since I started developing the Love and Respect approach to marriage, I knew the Scriptures plainly taught about the male need for respect, and my own observations confirmed this. But I was always curious. Would these ideas stand up to statistical analysis? Would this need for respect by men show up in research done by a top-notch survey group? Yes, it would. In one national study, four hundred men were given a choice between going through two different negative experiences. If they were forced to choose one of the following, which would they prefer to endure?

a) to be left alone and unloved in the world

b) to feel inadequate and disrespected by everyone

Seventy-four percent of these men said that if they were forced to choose, they would prefer being alone and unloved in the world.
³

For these men, the greater negative experience for their souls to endure would be to feel inadequate and disrespected by everyone. I have had numerous men confirm this research by telling me, “I would rather live with a wife who respected me but did not love me than live with a wife who loved me but did not respect me.”

These men are not saying that they are indifferent to love. They know they need love, but they need to feel respected even more than to feel loved. Perhaps a good analogy is water and food. We need both to survive, but we can live longer without food than without water. For men, love is like food and respect is like water. Enough said!
Respect is the key to motivating a husband.

A good illustration of how respect can motivate a man is found in our armed forces—the military. Because I attended a military academy from eighth grade to twelfth grade, I have had an interest in basic principles of military leadership. For instance, my observation is that great leaders motivated their troops through unconditional honor. Envision a U.S. Marine general speaking to his men after observing them in training maneuvers that did not go too well. “Men, I believe in you more than you believe in yourselves. Get your heads up. Look at me. I admire you more than you admire yourselves. Your performance stunk today, but I see more potential in this fighting unit than any in the world. Where you will be in six months will result in the world hearing of this fighting unit, and I am taking you there.”

When a general respects his men and believes in them more than they believe in themselves, these soldiers want to improve, they want to get better, they want to fulfill that potential this general sees in them. Such men want to serve. Why do you think they call it the military “service”?
⁴

Not only do men want to serve, but they are also willing to die in combat. There is something in many men, placed there by God, to fight and die for honor, to fight and die for women, children, and their buddies. When I attended Wheaton College, the chaplain there was Jim Hutchens, who had also been a chaplain in the Vietnam War. Jim told me that the Vietcong would wound an American soldier, knowing his buddies would seek to rescue him. Vietcong snipers would then seek to kill those who came out to try to drag the wounded man back to safety. He would often hear the heart cry of a GI: “I have to go.

A husband is geared to hear the command, “Take courage . . . be men and fight” (1 Samuel 4:9).

I have to help Joe. I can’t leave him there. I’ve got to go. He’s my friend.” Honor and love compelled the American GI in Vietnam as it has down through every war in history. One husband wrote to me:

I have been in the Air Guard for fourteen years with an additional six years of active duty. During your conference you made many references about men willing to die for their spouses or their nation. This certainly made an impression upon both of us. (My wife has always seen military service as equating to war and death. I see it as honor and duty.) I am committed not only to my country, but to the men I serve with. Only men who serve in such a capacity (military, firefighters, police officers) can understand the bonds that are formed and the loyalty you feel to one another.

I am sure this man is not trying to discount the women who serve honorably in various capacities in the military, as well as in firefighting and police work. But I believe he is trying to state a deep truth that is true of most men. I have counseled enough husbands to know the same kind of honor and loyalty that drives the military man is also in action in his home. Unfortunately, there are voices in our culture that have been saying, “Don’t show respect to men; they don’t deserve it. They’ll treat you in a subservient way, or they’ll abuse you and even kill you.” This is true of a certain number of men, but I believe it is a lie concerning the vast majority. A man who has basic goodwill will serve his wife and even die for her. There is no expectation of the wife to die for her husband.

Of course, there are wives who might push the point a bit. You may have heard the story about the woman who told her husband, “Oh, Harry, you keep saying you’d die for me, but you never do!” That’s just a story, of course, designed to get a smile or a laugh, but it isn’t funny when men who are willing to die for their wives are treated with contempt and no respect. One woman wrote to me to confess:

Although a Bible student for most of my life, and a very spiritual person, I had given up, but then I read your statement that says: “Though there is more to love than dying for someone, it is a sad day when a man knows that he’d die for his wife because he loves her, yet he hears her continually complain, [‘You don’t love me.’]” The truth hit me powerfully in my spirit like no other thing has hit me concerning our marriage. I felt the kind of shame one feels when she knows she has done terribly wrong, and she knows not to even ask for forgiveness, and she knows that this one will take a long time to heal, but she knows this is one thing she won’t do again.

This lady “gets it.”

HUSBANDS ARE TO VALUE WIVES AS EQUALS

Paul’s writings clearly command men to
agape
-love their wives (see Ephesians 5:22–33), but is there any place in Scripture where men are instructed to respect their wives as well? After teaching wives to behave respectfully before their husbands (see 1 Peter 3:1–2), Peter goes on to tell husbands to live in an understanding way with their wives “and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7). When Peter uses the phrase “show her honor as a fellow heir,” he is telling husbands to value and prize their wives as equals within the grace of God. Paul concurs when he writes that in Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).