Video Transcript: Emmerson Eggerichs on Two Key Ingredients to Successful Relationships

In 1973, my wife Sarah, and I married; we met at Wheaton College, and we were newlyweds. And in Chicago areas where Wheaton is. And my parents, I grew up in Peoria, Illinois, which is several hours south, and we decided to go home there for the weekend. At that time, I wore contact lenses and, and I got to Peoria and I was going to bed and I realized I had forgotten my contact lens case. So, what am I going to do? I decided to improvise. I got two juice glasses, filled them with water and took my one contact out, put it in the juice glass, took the other one on, put it in the other Then I took both juice glasses and placed them on the back of the toilet and went to bed. Don't get ahead of me. The next morning, I awakened, poured the one out yeah, there it is, and put it in and poured out the other. And I there was no second contact. It was nowhere. No, I mean, I looked inside, it was nowhere. So, I go out, my wife Sarah is with my mom and dad in the kitchen. And I said, Sarah did you do anything with those two juice glasses? On the back of the toilet in the middle of night or anything? She's no, no. Yes, I did. I got up in the middle of night and took a pill and used one of those juice glasses. She drank my contact!

I was in disbelief. I couldn't believe it. I said, I can't believe that you drank my contact!

She said, Well, I can't believe that you put your contact in a juice glass.

Well, I can't believe that you drank out of a juice glass on the back of a toilet.

And we had this moment of heated fellowship. And as newlyweds, as a young 20 something, I was angry. I couldn't believe she'd done this, you know, and I'm getting more and more angry. And my mom and dad are witnessing this. And I'm just, you know, here we are. And at a certain point, there is spirit deflated. 

Have you ever had a conflict with someone like your spouse or close family member when you have an issue that's going on here? When suddenly the issue is no longer the issue? And you see the spirit of the person deflate? My question is, what is the issue? And the issue isn't the issue. Something else was going on in Sara at that moment. And I'll come back to that in a second. Fast forward. It's Christmas time and again we go down to Peoria to be with my mom and dad with Christmas, and Sarah was raised in Indiana. She's a Hoosier. Her dad had over 2000 acres of corn. She's a farm girl. She was Miss Congeniality of Boone County and she can do it all, you know, the 4H stuff and sewing and everything. Well, I didn't know but she made me a jean jacket. And this was her special Christmas gift to me. And it was that last gift that you give right? And so that moment came Christmas morning and she now hands me her last and the best gift and she's grinning and I opened it up to jean jacket. And I put it on. Thank you.

And I'm looking at and she said you don't like it?

No, I do like it.

You don't like it, she says.

Sarah, no, I like it.

You don't like it.

I say, Sarah, why are you telling me that I don't like it?

Because in our family when we like something we go: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I said, in our family, we say thank you.

And during that moment, my spirit just kind of deflated. And I kind of just disengaged. Why? Because it wasn't about the jean jacket at that moment. And I didn't get in tune exactly with what I was feeling until years later. But I remember that theme. Because you see the issue wasn't the issue at that moment; something else was going on in my spirit. And I wasn't totally in tune with what it was. I'm going to share with you today that there are two key ingredients for successful relationships, primarily in marriage research, we're going to point out in just a second, and also what the scripture says. But there is application in any relationship between men and women, where you basically care about the other person. It applies because it's really a male and female, not a husband-and-wife issue. And I'm going to propose to you that when the issue isn't the issue with the woman, there's usually one thing that's going on in her spirit at that moment of time. Just one. See if I can make the case. You don't have to buy into that contention at this point. And when the issue isn't the issue with the man there's one thing going on and him and again, just one in most cases. What's fascinating is that they're not the same one thing. That one thing in her is different, that one thing in him is different from the one thing in her. And this is why it makes it interesting, because when that spirit deflates, we have a tendency to see them as childish. Oh, brother. Oh, what? Oh. Now what did I say?

And I'm not exaggerating with some of you. 

So, what are these two key ingredients that make for successful relationships? The University of Washington's studied 2000 couples--we'll look at the research first--2000 couples for 20 years in their love laboratory. And this love laboratory, they were not only taking copious notes, clinical psychologists and social workers and different things they were videotaping, they also had husbands and wives connected with what we call BPM, they were measuring the beats per minute of the heart, the physiology, what was going on, because as people stay in that kind of a situation, you let your hair down, and you just kind of are yourself and they kind of just said, Be yourself, you know. And so, at a certain point, people just react to each other like they wouldn't a home. They weren't always feeling they were under, you know, supervision to just be yourself. And as they got into this, over the 20-year period, they said, we now know the two key ingredients for successful marriages. And when those two ingredients are present, the marriage, generally speaking, succeeds. When those two are not there, the marriage will fail. And of course, think bell curve here; there's no dogmatic absolute, if they're always present, the relationship will succeed if they're not, but and huge, vast, statistically significant way. Yeah, these are the two key ingredients.

Well, what did they say they were? Love and respect. And they said it doesn't make any difference. Certain factors, certain variables, I mean, it didn't make any difference, the age of the couple didn't make any difference, how much money they had, their economic status, it didn't make any difference on any front. They could have been the volatile type couples, or the avoidant type couples. And volatile doesn't mean violent, it just means you know, they're very expressive with each other, others just don't deal with conflict they just are quiet, it didn't make any difference, the style of argument, economic status, number of children, etc. What they found is those relationships that succeeded were carried along with a tone of love and respect toward each other while they were dealing with those real issues. In other words, people think if we didn't have money problems, we'd have a great relationship. No, that's not true. It's the lack of love and respect you show toward the spirit of the other person while you're addressing the money problems. There are people in India that have no money, but have great marriages. There are people with more money than they know what to do with and have horrible marriages. There's no correlation. The stress is real but what the stress simply does is reveal who we are; it doesn't cause us to be who we are. It reveals whether or not I'm going to choose to be a loving person, respectful person towards you, while I'm upset with you. Even though I'm mad, I'm going to show a positive regard toward your spirit while I'm addressing the issue. And if I don't do that, you're going to deflate, at a certain point, because you're vulnerable to hostility and contempt or the appearance of it. And so we mislead ourselves: if we didn't have the in-law issues; if we didn't have the child issues; if we didn't have the work relationship issues; we didn't have the employment problems; if we didn't have the money issues, health issues, I mean, you can go on and on and on and on. And these are real issues. We're not minimizing them. Some of you lose a five-year-old child to cancer and the child dies. I mean, these are real issues. But they are not the cause of the relationship ending in divorce. It just brings out that which is there. And as painful as that is, it's really an excitement that should generate from this, because we realize we can control far more than we think; we're not helpless, hopeless victims, although we feel that way at certain moments.

But as the University of Washington studied those 2000 couples for 20 years, and found love and respect as the two key ingredients, they saw some gender differences. For instance, during these conflicting moments between this man and woman, they discovered over 2000 couples 20 years that 85% of those who at a certain point withdrew and stonewalled and just backed away from the emotional argument. The conflict is the male 85% This isn't pigeonholing the man, this is not stereotyping the man. This is a pattern that's predictable. It's statistically significant, off the charts. He withdraws. Now 15% of the women withdraw. My mother withdrew from my father. My dad had had rage issues. When I was two and a half, three years old, I saw him attempt to strangle my mother. There were issues that wounded me. I was eventually sent to military school from age 13 to 18. So I come out of a family--we were not Christ followers--that had some real challenges. My mother withdrew, but women withdraw for different reasons. They withdraw out of fear, fear that their emotions are going to be dismissed, that they're going to be put down, the husband's going to justify himself and blame her. And so, she shuts down, not because she wants to, but because she feels there's no point in connecting, because he won't be responsive to me.

Men, on the other hand, withdraw for different reasons. But the women were asked, Why, does your husband do this? They didn't know. And what do you feel when he withdraws from you? And they said, This feels like an act of hostility. The opposite of love. It feels like he hates me, act of hostility is what they say. But I've been studying men for a long time. And I know that, from that research and also my own research, that they discovered that when men are in these conflicted moments, their heartbeats get to 99+ beats per minute, the BPMs. That's what we call warrior mode. That's what happens to a man physiologically before he throws himself on a hand grenade to save his buddies in war. This is what happens to him when someone invades your home and is about to hurt you, as his wife. This is the adrenaline coming over him that literally leads him to his own death. He doesn't cower in fear, he just moves; that energy moves into a quick rescue kind of thing. So, it's either fight. Or if you're with somebody you care about, it's got to be flight. You've got to calm down. If I was best friends with a guy, and we were you know, guys get mad at each other, what were lethal at a certain point, we don't fight with words, we fight with our fists and we could hurt each other. We know that. So, we just drop it, forget it. I'm so sick and tired. But we exit, because we're best friends: we would die for each other if we don't kill each other. We're best buddies. And so, you disengage, why? Because it's the honorable thing to do. It's the Honor Code. It's what men do, it's the honorable thing to de-escalate a conflict which at the end of the day really not that big of a deal, is not worth getting in a fight over and hurting somebody. So, my question, is this: Is it an act of hostility? Or is it an act of honor? The answer is yes. It just depends on whether you videotape in pink, or videotape in blue. Unless there's an intrinsic evil going on.

You're fighting over should we hoodie, or, should we not sell the kids?

But almost every conflict is a preference issue. Should we go to the Christian School or the secular school? Should we should we go to this church or that church? Should we have this color carpet or that color carpet? And these are real conflicts. Should we spend money? Or should we save the money? Should we have our mother, my mother, move in with us, or not? But these are not evil. You might think that it is, but it's just not an evil situation. Intrinsically, it's not evil. It's a choice. It's an opinion. It's an interest. It's a preference. And we have these clashing preferences. But during these conflicts, he withdraws. So, is that evil? Is that really an act of hostility? From a woman's perspective, yes, it feels very unloving; from man's perspective, an act of honor.

But they also did something interesting as they watched the women, they had the clinical psychologists, social workers, and they would be listening these conversations. Yeah, there she is, again, criticism, complaint, criticism, complaint. Oh, there's a complaint. Yep. There's a criticism, complaint, criticism, complaint, criticism, but that's not politically correct. I know. What should we do, lie? No, we can't, we've got to tell the truth. There's a complaint and there's a criticism. There's a complaint there's criticism. And the men are asked, what do you feel when she keeps criticizing? Ongoing criticism just feels like she's got contempt for who I am as a human being. I think she's just using this topic as another opportunity to send me a message that she didn't like who I am. She finds me inadequate, doesn't respect me. But in all my research of women, one of things I've espoused over the last 15 years is women confront to connect. I had a dentist guy say to me once No, no, my wife confronts to control me. Really, he was thinking she confronts to get. No, she confronts to control me. I said, you know exactly what she's saying. I can focus I need to connect and want to connect with him.

I said, I believe she confronts to connect because she cares. She criticizes because she cares. She complains because she cares. She moves forward to confront because she cares to connect to resolve this issue. So, it raises the question, during these conflicted moments, is it an act of contempt? Or is in an act of care? The answer is, yes. It just depends on whether or not you're videotaping in pink or blue. Neither are wrong. We're just different. And we've got to get in tune with this, because even though we all need love and respect equally, let me say this times two, we all need love and respect equally. We all need love and respect equally: women need our respect. By the way, Otis Redding wrote that song. In the mid-1960s, it was released from a husband to his wife. But when Aretha was coming along this future soul queen, they said that has a rhythm that we want to use with her, and I tried to change it to death. So I would say men, we had one song and they took it.

Women need respect. And men need love. There's no question. It's a true need. But what we're going to point out today is that there's a male and female difference that I'll explain in just a second. The felt need differs. In fact, what's interesting, men process the world through this blue set of lenses. As Shaunti Feldhahn, a good friend of mine, was doing a random sample of the American male, she hired decision analyst out of Houston to do this random sample of the American male. They did it once. And they were so stunned with the findings, they ran another sample of 400 men. And she called me because one of the questions she wanted to ask was the one that I'm about to ask of you. Because she'd heard this question asked for herself when she was in a college group during her coed days as a collegiate and she said, Should I run this question? I said, Oh, absolutely. And here's the question, would you men rather be left alone and unloved in the world? Or would you rather be viewed as inadequate and disrespected? Almost 80% of the men said they'd rather be left alone and unloved in the world. Men cannot handle the idea that you find them inadequate as a human being, and you don't respect them for who they are as human beings. We're not talking about the fact that you are to see all of their behaviors adequate and respect all their behavior. We don't do that among ourselves. We're not talking about behavior, we're talking about the spirit of the individual, are we sending the message to the man, you're an inadequate human being, and I don't respect who you are as a human being. And when that message comes across, you're going to lose his heart.

But it begs the question in this culture, whether that's rooted in narcissism, egotistical attitudes of prideful arrogance, and that's where the feminist movement would say, we will tell you men who you are and how you feel. When men serve and die for honor, the disconnect between what we feel as men about issues of honor that actually compels us to give our very lives, that attitude is interpreted as narcissistic, in many cases, because it will recoil in independence and anger when you step on us, or we feel you're stepping on us. And all of our outward projection would naturally be interpreted that way by some and sometimes they're narcissistic people. This is their pre-Madonna women. She has to be center stage all the time. But if you take those exceptions and make those rules, you're going to miss the heart of people. I've asked 7000 people this question, when you're in a conflict with your spouse, do you feel unloved at that moment, or disrespected? 83% of the men said they feel disrespected. 72% of the women said they feel unloved. This is statistically significant. You start at zero and go to the extremes. This is just beyond. It's just unbelievable. Now it illustrates again, the bell curve: women do need respect men do need love. We're not arguing against that; we're saying in the vast majority of cases the felt need during conflict is as different as pink is from blue. And if we dismiss the other person as childish, because they deflate over an issue that doesn't bother us, we're going to miss something here that's extremely important to the success of a relationship and being close.

But there's also a revelation in Scripture, which is just mind boggling. And Ephesians 5:33. The apostle Paul says this in the summary to the greatest treatise in the New Testament on marriage. It's the summary verse; this is like God's last word of the church on marriage, not in terms of chronology, but in what we call progressive revelation in terms of impact. Also say this is kind of the pinnacle, husband's must love their wives and wives must respect their husbands. That's what the verse is saying. There it is. And did you know that only husbands are commanded to agape love their wives? No wife is commanded to agape love her husband. There are three Greek words in marital love: agape love, which is the unconditional component; phileo, Philadelphia friendship, love; and then Eros, the erotic. Now in Titus 2, the older women are to encourage younger women to love their husbands and love their children but that's phileo. Not phileo your husband, it is a friendship love. She becomes exhausted, she becomes negative. She needs the encouragement of the older, because she's just tired and she lets it go. She's negative. You know, women want the relationship. Romance me, surprised me. Make me laugh. Men say, I just want the relationship less negative. Can't we just have one day when everything's okay? That in the home, it's the negative wife because, she's burden, burden, burden. She cares. She cares. And it just but it turns out and then she's just serving, serving, serving, serving as he has it. So, you say to the kids does your mommy love you? Oh, yeah. She loves us a lot; it's that agape love. Yep. Does she like you? No, we've been bad. That's why we're in timeout.

Hey, Harry. Yeah? Does your wife love ya? Oh, yeah. She likes you? No, not today; kind of like with the kids, that I've been bad.

So only husbands are commanded to agape love. Why? Because I don't love Sarah in my nature in the same way that Sarah loves in her nature. And I said to the Lord, why have you not commanded a woman to love? And it was as inaudible voice. I put it within the nature of women to nurture. Women love to love at the level of intimacy. You have to wound a woman to get her to stop loving at the level of intimacy like your mom stopped. I'm not going to command a woman to do what I designed her to do, because I'm not into redundancy. I mean, listen to you, to your vocabulary, ladies. You said you maybe you called your mother this this morning. Hi, mom. And then when you ended, love you, love you, love you, love, love. Or your sister. Hi, sister. You? Bye, love you! Love, love, love. Love you your best friend. Love you, love you, see you later. Love, love, love you. Love you X's and O's, hearts love you Love, love, love you. Love, love, love, love. Sarah needed to run into the store a couple of days ago, my wife, to get some things that I'll just run into you just parked right here outside now I'll be back in 30 seconds and she opens the door says love you. She started laughing because you know, we talked about this, it just comes out. I said you're going to be back in 15 seconds. This is laughing as she goes in.

So, God's not going to command you do that. But I don't love as naturally. I mean, if that's the case, then the command is moot. Why would God command me to do something if I do it naturally, the Agape love? He commands the wife to put on respect. Why? Because it's not natural for you. We, as men, live by the Honor Code; he's not going to command us to live that Greek word and wait, He commanded you. It's unique. Because we do this naturally. It's within our nature to live by the Honor Code. You just don't diss another man on a street corner late at night with about 15 guys standing around: you're going to be dead in five seconds. You just don't violate it. It's like some of your husbands look at us. Whoa, whoa, honey, whoa. Fascinating. God said this 2000 years ago, Husbands love your wives, wives, respect. But women said that dreams don't have to be honest with you. I don't feel any respect for him; it would be hypocritical for me to show respect when I don't feel it. And I know, you don't want me to be a hypocrite. You know, he hasn't earned the respect. And everybody says you’ve got to earn respect. He doesn't deserve it. He's not superior to me. And that's the dictionary definition of respect, you show respect to your superiors. And then inferior to him, I'm not going to be treated like a doormat, I certainly not going to give them license to do what he wants, come in with pom poms and cheer him on to do whatever he wants, just respect all that behavior. I'm not going to lose a sense of myself and identity. I'm not going to set the feminist movement back 50 years. You know, what I really think you're up to, you want to return to a male patriarchy and get us back to fearing male dominance, I'm not going to do that. I'm certainly not going to subject myself to emotional abuse. But other than those things, I'm really open to hearing what you have to say about this.

How many of you have sons, would you raise your hands? What I just shared with you, the mantra: I refer to it as, and that's going to be the attitude your sweet daughter in law who's filled with love is going to have toward your precious baby boy. I'm telling you, we laugh but it's true. And did you know it's called the walkaway woman; it's epidemic. Women are leaving marriages two to three times more than men and your son will not leave the marriage. But she will say, he's an unloving human being filled with narcissism, and he will just shut down and withdraw. Because he doesn't know how to deal with that. What I just went through and she'll feel fully justified. At the same time, there's no mean spirited, so she's totally confused. Because she's been given license to say all of that and feel all that. Why? Because of academia, and where we're at as a culture, and I, my PhD, I mean, I'm educated actually beyond my intelligence.

And we need to understand the influences that we've been subjected to. So even the idea of respect is right there, no wife is commanded to agape love her husband. And both Paul and Peter talk about respect. I mean, Peter says you win a disobedient husband, First Peter 3, through your respectful behavior. Over the years, so many godly, wise women have said, I've never even read this. So, what are you reading? We'll see, if you're only looking for love, you'll only see love. You see what you're looking for. We've become a love-based culture. So, we don't pay attention to all the scriptures dealing with honor and respect. There's far more about the glory of God, but we're thinking about, God loves me. Well, the truth is, He's going to honor us throughout eternity, and we're going to glorify Him, but we just don't pay attention to that because it doesn't resonate with us. And we become more effeminate in our perspective, even in our spirituality. But the key to winning a husband is what we call unconditional respect. The man is disobedient to the Word. He's either a believer or a carnal believer or an unbeliever. Peter doesn't identify, he said he's just disobedient to the word but you can win him without a word. Is that a sexist comment? By your respectful behavior, there's power. But instead, it's been viewed as sexist, and as demeaning. But then on the other side, you have: husbands, Colossians 3:19, you're to Love Your Wives, Love Your Wives, and do not be embittered against them. And the word here is, whatever she's doing to embitter you , to make you mad, to anger. She's just trying to provoke she just, no, no, the truth is, she's crying out for your love.

And I will say that many men here would die for their wives. In fact, one husband said to his wife, I love you so much I die for you. She said, Oh, here you keep saying that, but you never do.

Now the second major point, what happens? What happens when we innocently overlook, and I want to give us the benefit of the doubt, innocently overlook these two key ingredients that make for successful relationships? The first thing is we step on each other's air hose. I envisioned that Sarah has this love tank connected by an air hose. And when I come in and stand on it, she deflates. When I got angry with her about swallowing my contact, she deflated. Why it wasn't, at that point, about the contact. It was about her embarrassment that I was being unloving. And we had a discussion subsequent to that, that I was unloving. And there are many moments when Sara feels disrespected. And let me insert this, she will indeed feel disrespected. But if you keep showing disrespect to a woman, week, after week, month after month, she'll say, How can you say you love me and treat me this way? Whereas if you show disrespect to a man, week after week, he'll finally say, I don't deserve this disrespect. Everybody respects me, but you. Why doesn't he land on love? Because God designed you to love; he knows you love him. He just thinks you find him inadequate. And don't respect him because of it. Because he doesn't love like you love and therefore, he is not good enough. Ever hear him say that? I can never be good enough.

Unless you've said to him, I don't love you, he's not insecure about that. Because he knows you love. He knows that. In conflict, you'll say I love you. I know you'll love me. He'll say, but he can't get in tune with what he's gotten if he's 'You're not respectful:' Well, frankly, you don't deserve any respect. You haven't earned it. You're not superior to me. What are you saying? I don't feel and I'm not going to go through the mantra. And that's why the first year of marriage he said probably twice and he's never said it again. And then you say these 35 years of marriage it seems like he's keeping something back from me. Yes, the core of his heart. Because he didn't know how to put a voice and vocabulary to what he feels without being dismissed as narcissistic, at best, and as deranged worst. So, it just goes quiet. When Sarah said to me, you know, you don't like the jean jacket. I said thank you. But she said you didn't say thank you enough. And at a certain point, I felt she was calling my integrity into question, that I was lying to her. I was being, 'I liked the jean jacket.' Okay, I enjoy. It was, Where's this coming from? Because I'm not sanguine, and I wasn't Miss Congeniality of Boone County. I can teach and I have gift mixed, but basically, I'm a quiet, boring individual. But I was sincere. I felt disrespected. Wasn't in tune with it then but as I looked at that's exactly what I felt: Dishonored, and I deflated because you see, I have this respect tank connected by an air hose and she came in and stood on it. 

And we can fill those tanks or we can suck the life out of them. We can make deposits of love and respect or we can make huge withdrawals that into bankrupting the relationship emotionally. But something else happens. I discovered, this was what launched the Love Respect ministries, why we wrote the book Love and Respect and why we continued I've got a new book called Mother and Son: The Respect Effect. Why I'm on this because I looked at this Ephesians 5:33 passage, I had the privilege of studying the Bible 30 hours a week for nearly 20 years. And so, I looked at everything in Scripture dealing with husbands and wives and gender issues like husbands live with your wives in an understanding way since she's a woman, precisely because of her gender. Come to grips, Emerson, with Sarah's femininity. I made her that way. But as I got into this Ephesians 5:33 passage a husband is to love, a wife must respect. I'm thinking, I think there's a connection here. Because when Sara feels unloved, it's very natural for her to react to me in ways that feel disrespectful to me. And I certainly know that when I feel disrespected, it's very natural for me to react in ways that feel unloving to her.

And I think that's why God gives us the command. The command for me to love is to protect me when I'm feeling dissed, not to react in a way that feels unloving and disobedient to Jesus Christ. And the reason that God commands Sarah to put on respect, because it's very much within her nature, the proclivity is to react in a disrespectful way when she feels unloved. So, the command to respect is there to guard her against that tendency. And so, I saw though this connection without love, she reacts without respect. Without respect, he reacts without love; without love, she reacts without respect; without respect, he reacts without love, without love, she reacts with his bedroom, and this baby spins among couples of goodwill. And when the issue isn't the issue, this is probably the issue, and it's very gender specific. And though we all need love and respect equally, the felt need during conflict and the way we interpret each other through pink and blue lenses puts us on that crazy cycle. And what's even more unfortunate, is that we each believe We're correct. We don't understand that without love, defensively, she reacts offensively without respect. And without respect, defensively, he reacts offensively without love. We push them off our air hose, and in the process stand on theirs. We defensively push them off, but offensively stand on theirs, but we don't see it. And I push her off mine and I stand on hers; our defensive reactions offend, and it keeps spinning this thing and we take up offense at each other. And we both feel that we're the insecure one. And for the life of us, we can't understand why they keep reacting to us in a way that's undermining our deepest emotional need. And then she begins to look at it, and women really get in tune with this. Something happens like you know, he buys you a diet book because you're complaining about being overweight and fat and don't have anything to wear, so he makes this mistake once, buys the book comes home, gives it to you and you hear a message through his blue megaphone and your pink hearing aids: I don't accept you, I don't approve of you. And I don't love you unless you look like a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader. She feels hugely unloved. Body image issues: all the research points out this is huge. You've got to be very sensitive. She buys him a diet book. He's 40 pounds over right? He needs to lose weight she comes brings him a diet book. What's he do? Hey, thanks! What's for dinner? He doesn't go ballistic. So, it's very easy gentlemen, for us to dismiss her vulnerability, because she has a vulnerability where God didn't allow us men to have that vulnerability. In fact, God gave us natural strengths, to no credit of ourselves. And we're passing judgment on our wife based on her vulnerability. Oh, good grief. Oh, because you see her deflate and she's holding you hostage for making her feel that way. And you can't believe this: grow up woman. Just a diet book. See if I ever buy you one again.

You're into the marriage the first year, you come home. This is the third marriage book you've purchased for the two of you to read. This is the third marriage book. He refuses to read it. This time he says 'done,' because both times you've gotten the other two books, huge fights. So, he says I'm not going to read this. He just shuts down. And you see you say, he doesn't value me. He doesn't value the marriage. I want to deal with my stuff. But he didn't want to deal with his stuff. And this just comes: right, he doesn't want to talk about you and the girl he wants you to owe your girlfriend so everybody Oh. But he hears a message through your pink megaphone into this blue hearing aids and that message is this: I don't accept you. I don't approve of you. And I don't respect who you are, Buster, unless you change and become more loving like me. That's what he hears. And we can argue all day long that she ought not to deflate over the diet book and we can argue all day long that he ought not to feel that way and we can bring what we call in philosophy, the moral 'ought: you ought not to. It is based on who we are. after all, our feelings and sentiments are the voice of God. So, there's this tendency to pass judgment, because you ladies, in this case, don't have a vulnerability where he does. You have natural strengths and no credit of yourself, God made you that way. And you're passing judgment based on the natural strengths that God gave to you, to really no credit to yourself, and you're judging him based on a vulnerability that he has, that you don't understand, but you dismiss as childish when the truth is, he hears a message in the same way that you hear a message in the diaper. And even there, you dismissed this illustration because you say the marriage is much more valuable. That's right. So, his judgment is much more severe, isn't it?

It is interesting how we've been so conditioned in this culture.

So, what's interesting in the diet book, she feels unloved in the first place. She seeks to do the loving thing, she needs to talk about this, I can't believe you did this. She moves toward him to connect, she confronts you critically, she's complaining. And while she's venting, he says, You're so disrespectful. she can't believe it. And he walks out and she feels even more love. So, she has four levels of proof that she's right. She fell in love in the first place. She seeks to do the loving thing. She hears that she's disrespectful. Where's this coming from? And she feels even more unloved. And if she's right, then he's got to be.... Men don't put a voice and vocabulary to it as easily, as I've said, but for instance, you hand him a third marriage book, he's in disbelief. I can't believe it. I'm never good enough. You don't approve. I mean, you can say he's wrong for that. We're not trying to be justifiable of everything that he's feeling. But let's just give him the benefit of the doubt. He's feeling disrespected. Instead of engaging, which is going to rile him, heartbeats, 90+. And he just says, You know what, I just don't want to get into this. It's just It's so upsetting to me. I'm going to protect this thing by just not even getting, it's just not that important. I don't need to do this. That's how he's processing it. Even though everybody's ,Well, that's not fair to her, I get that. But let's give him the benefit of doubt. Give your son the benefit of the doubt to a third marriage book? What message is your son going to hear? So, then he's trying to do the honorable thing only in withdrawing that she's coming after him. He feels even more disrespected now. Because she's telling him he's so unloving and doesn't care, when he knows he'd die for her. And he feels even more disrespected. So as for levels of proof, he can't articulate it. But somehow in his spirit says this, this isn't just, this isn't honorable This is an error. It doesn't feel right to me. And he says you're not respectful. Do you deserve my respect? So, it just goes quieter. The Crazy Cycle spins. But I'm going to end today in a few minutes with saying that you don't use this crazy cycle as justification for your disobedience to the command to be loving or respectful, with a reason that I'm not loving, because she's so disrespectful. Nope, it's your choice.

The reason I'm so disrespected because these are not... Nope. The command comes to you, your spouse is irrelevant. So, you can justify your disobedience because of the person you're married to?

The very command to do, in that relationship, you don't have to do because of the individual you entered holy matrimony with, made a covenant with? So, as we conclude, how do we ensure applying these two key ingredients in order to succeed in relationships? Well, first, by valuing God's design that Jesus had in Matthew 19, for having not read who made them from the beginning made them male and female. And I just want you to know that he made us pink and blue; neither are wrong, we're just different. Neither are wrong. We're just different. We have a foolish conclusion in this culture that because we're equal, legally equal in the eyes of God, therefore, we must be the same. Whoa, whoa, non sequitur, doesn't follow. Because we're equal doesn't mean that we're the same. She will always bring the egg he will always bring something else to create a child. The X X and X Y chromosome is there within the womb. It's not going to change. You can always know we are not the same, but we are equal in the in the eyes of God, no question about that. But He made us husband & wife to reflect His image. You put pink and blue together it's purple, the color of royalty, the color of God, husband & wife together reflect His image. In that sense. God's not pink. God's not blue. God's purple; husband and wife together reflect His image. He made us different to complement, not to complain, that we reflect His image His royalty, and a person who is unmarried who has the gift of celibacy has given us compensatory grace that allow them to reflect the image of God in an unmarried state. And if you're not a unit for the kingdom, the husband wife together reflect the image of God.

You're not designed here to say that because I'm right, you must be wrong. No, you're not wrong, you're just different. And that difference is designed by God to reflect him rather than lead to feuds. But there's something else. By doing what God calls me to do in the marriage, God calls me to do something independent of Sarah, and call Sarah to do something independent of me, the very marriage that we're in, our spouse is irrelevant. I say that in a reverent way, not a dismissive way. And I want you to think about these four points as we come to the conclusion. And these are all based on salient scriptures, I will trust in my spouse has goodwill, even though I have moments when I feel they lack concern, to please me

And this is based on First Corinthians 7:33-34, the husband is concerned about how to please his wife, the wife is concerned about how to please her husband. Paul penned this, and he also penned Romans, the great treatise on the depravity of the human heart. But he said, Look, you are married. Because we're fallen creatures and we are in sin doesn't mean the reflection of the image of God isn't there within us or in our relationship. There is so much inherent good, just not good enough to be saved. But the point is, don't be saying to your spouse, you don't have any concern about me, you don't want to please me, you get on the Crazy Cycle. And that's the tendency: you don't care. You don't want to please me, your destiny. Yeah, we are unloving, and we keep spinning and pause, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, yes, that behavior feels that way, their defensive reaction feels that way. But you’ve got to come to a point where you will trust their goodwill, where you will believe in their goodwill. And I didn't know how much traction this teaching would get. But people have said this changed their marriage. Of course, she's got goodwill. She's a loving, virtuous woman. But she just makes me so mad. And I know he would die for me, if I don't kill him first. 

And once you say that you started having this positive regard: I know you're a goodwill person, but I'm spitting mad at you right now. And I'm goodwill too. But we're both spitting mad. But we've got to remember where we have goodwill. I think there's a second major point, I will accept some marital trouble, as God's design between two people who have personal preferences that differ. First Corinthians 7:28, Paul said, If you marry, you have not sinned, but you will have trouble. And every text has this context. You go back to verses three and four. The husband does not have authority over his own body, the wife does. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Talking to her about sex, each has equal say; when it comes to sexual intimacy, each has equal authority when it comes to sexual intimacy. So, it raises the question who decides on Tuesday night, whether they're going to have sex or not? The answer, according to God, is yes. Emerson, are you saying that the Lord designed trouble? That's exactly what I'm saying. It's what I call the 80/20 Rule. 80% can be a wonderful friendship, but you're going to have 20% trouble because Tuesday night comes. And you're in the center of God's will, when it happens, you're not outside of his will, you've got to understand this, but some of us are locked into the 99th percentile idea: 99 to one rather than 80/20 and that 19% Difference disillusions you and embitters you. That's because you live by Hollywood, not the Holy Word. And you're going to have to make a decision, because I could write scripts for Hollywood, because I understand the appetites of men and women, but they don't live it themselves. Many of them are far better people than I am. I'm not impugning their hearts. I'm just saying, you've got to understand how unrealistic that is. God says that if you marry, you will have trouble. But some of you are bitter and disillusioned, because of that 19% discrepancy, the little leaven has leavened the whole, another 80% that could be wonderful. It's been ruined because of your unrealistic paradise expectations. If you'll let me preach.

And then thirdly, I will follow God's revelation to me in Ephesians 5:33. Husbands love, wives respect, since my spouse affords me the opportunity to show my loving and reverend obedience to God. And 5:21 Paul says be subject to one another and the reverence of Christ that ultimately Sarah, for instance, puts on respect toward me because she sees Jesus standing beyond my shoulder, and she's reverencing the Lord. I'm just an opportunity for her to demonstrate her reverence. I'm to love Sarah, but deeper. I'm to love Jesus Christ as to the Lord. He goes from the horizontal to the vertical. I show my love for Jesus Christ as I love Sarah. This is why, if you've got problems with loving and respecting, it's a spiritual issue. It's a crisis of faith, not a crisis of your marriage. Because it really doesn't make any difference if they're lovable, or respectable.

Now, if you're in harm's way, you get out: my mom separated for six years. We're not talking about harm's way. We're talking about people who are having ongoing clashes. You're not happy with each other, but there isn't abuse going on. We're just saying there is a major tension on an ongoing basis. And you've decided, I'm not going to be a loving, respectful person until they love and respect me. And you put the onus back on them, to motivate you to obey. God doesn't work that way. And furthermore, it demonstrates you're really the reason for it not working, in all probability, because you're refusing to be the loving, respectful person, because you're married to one bad dude or dudess for them not to respond to your loving demeanor, your respectful demeanor on an ongoing basis. They'll eventually come under conviction and soften and make confession to you of their wrongdoing. But they're not going to respond if you put the onus back on them to make the relationship happy. And furthermore, you're giving them all the power. They control you. You are a hopeless, helpless victim. That's what you believe. In Jesus Christ, the thing is, you are missing something here, you are free. They do not control you. My command to you. You are free. And not only that, the last point Paul goes on it. He talks about husbands, wives, fathers, children, master, slave and in some cases the citizen authority. And there's this theme throughout; he wrote it on parchment--chapter and verse was added later. And he ends this whole section with whatever good thing each one does this he'll receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. This principle applies to everybody. The New International says you will be rewarded when you put on love toward that woman who's not respecting you. The Lord says, Attaboy. This is going to be rewarded throughout eternity. Well done, good and faithful servant. You got it. She afforded you the opportunity to love me and to allow me to reward you, even though she walked out on the marriage. You succeeded in marriage my way even though she had an affair, divorced you and remarried someone else. You succeeded in this relationship because you love and reverence me.

Sam Moser, good friend of mine, had Nickelodeon in New York for years, said to me, I've been a believer in Jesus Christ. But I never thought that this is about Christ and me, not about my spouse to me. I never thought of it that way. Your spouse cannot prevent you from loving and reverencing Christ, your spouse cannot prevent you from loving and respecting them. They are irrelevant. Have you caught the vision? You can succeed in God's eyes, whether or not they respond. But here's the deal. If you put on love and respect, it's probably going to lead to a very successful marriage. Let's close in prayer. Lord, you know our hearts. You know our inadequacies. We're so thankful the Holy Spirit has been sent and described as the helper. Lord, it is not natural for me to love when I feel disrespected. It's not natural for Sarah to put on respect when she feels unloved. Every day we acknowledge Lord Jesus helped me do this. But thank you for the vision you've given me to do this, because it's not about our spouse. Through Christ we pray. Amen.