Customer Reviews

Love and Respect: The Love She Most Desires - The Respect He Desperately Needs

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I am a man who normally does not read or enjoy reading "inspirational" or "relational" books. My wife is the reader in these areas and is very wise and self-developed in these areas. Unfortunately, I usually don't read the books she recommends. However, this book is different. I liked it. It hits home to my basic needs. I think many women don't realize the importance to men of unconditional respect as described in this book. I'd recommend it strongly to any husband and wife who want to deepen their relationship. If you are a wife who can't get your husband to read inspirational books, relational books or marriage books, you might be pleasantly surprised to find him reading along with you and discussing this book with you.

Two years ago, before I was married, I read this same book by Dr. Eggerich. At the time, I thought 'well, this sounds reasonable', and continued along my merry way after closing the front cover. I remember now that, at the time I'd picked the book up at the store, a woman mentioned to me 'this book saved my marriage, honestly... pay attention and you won't regret it'. Reading it through for a second time, after being married for a year and a half? Dr. Eggerich has it right.

Women need love, and men need respect. Both are mutually inclusive, because when a woman receives love she feels respected, and when a man is respected, it's a sign of love to him. Eliminate either love or respect, and couples start on what he terms 'the Crazy Cycle'. How do you stop the crazy cycle? It's all based on love and respect. Dr. Eggerich outlines what this means for both husbands and wives, what they can do to increase love and respect (and maintain it!), and how to prevent getting back on the Crazy Cycle in the future.

Whether you're dating, engaged, or married for any length of time, the Dr. speaks the truth... and it's worth a listen!

I read this book like a thriller novel - I actually couldn't put it down. It explained so many of the gaps in my mostly-healthy marriage. I found his views on the roles in marriage very refreshing and eye-opening while still being biblically sound and not at all kooky. He makes it very clear that men and women are equal in marriage and that both require love AND respect, but shows that God has made men to need respect in particular, and that women are specially designed to need love. As a woman I found it difficult sometimes to read about giving unconditional respect to my husband. In this day and age, we are told that respect is to be earned, not given unconditionally. But in a marriage that is struggling, someone has to make the first move! Too many TV shows hammer down the husbands as dumb, ignorant, beer-chugging oafs while their wives domineer the house. This book shows how to encourage your husband to lead your home, and how a man can love and honor his wife. Be the bigger person and offer your spouse love/respect first, and you will find yourself in a much, much more wonderful marriage!

This book has words that every wife and husband needs to hear. In an age where there is few examples of good marriages and how they work, this gives a person the opportunity to look inside the heart of their spouse and see how they tick without damaging them in the process. If you have ears to hear what he has to say, this book is for you.

I started reading with scepticism, thinking this would be an old-fashioned stereotype kind of book. I'm a strong-minded career woman with a bit of an attitude at the best of times. It brought me to tears to realize how I had been showing my husband such disrespect, and not reverencing Christ in doing so. It is not about being a doormat or perpetually saccharin sweet or never confronting issues. The author encourages wives to respectfully confront unloving behaviour, and husbands to lovingly address disrespectful behaviour: "You can be right but wrong at the top of your voice." He does not diminish a wife's need for respect or a husband's need for love, but illustrates clearly, using many interesting stories, how love is usually a wife's primary need and respect is a husband's. I found the book very enlightening (although I should have understood this earlier) and very respectful of both men and women. Brilliant. Thank you Dr Eggerichs!

Love and Respect, though seemingly just another self-help, pop-psychology book, offers a potentially ground-breaking view of marriage. Rather than calling for the typical sissification of the man by getting him to talk about his feelings and in general see things through a woman's eyes, Dr. Eggerichs asks women to see men differently as well. For once, an author does not assume that women's ways of doing things are normative and morally superior, and that men must conform.

Central to the argument, Eggerich asserts that men and women are not the same, and that the Bible's teachings on marriage are as valid as ever because it shows how men and women have different needs. While women are verbal beings in need of assurance that they are loved and safe, men are action-oriented, and would rather silently share an experience than talk about feelings. Men communicate through words, but more than that, through their actions.

Feminists have indoctrinated women to look down on men and not to understand men. They no longer meet their husband's deepest need, which is to feel respected. When they cut down their husband, he shuts off, and she feels unloved. In order to get that love, she becomes more rude and cutting so that he will be able to see just how desperately unloved she feels. This leads the husband to distance himself even more. Thus the couple has entered a vicious cycle.

For this cycle to be broken, wives need to respect their husbands unconditionally, even when they don't feel respect for their man. The husband must unconditionally love his wife, even when he doesn't feel it. This love and respect is actually not about feelings, but about responding to God's call.

Exceptional new look at the marriage relationship. A vital guide to what it means to love AND respect. So often respect is ignored, taken right from the scriptures, it is clear this is how we are to relate. A very rich spiritual element, hones in on our obedience to God.

The idea of love and respect seems almost trivial but has an immense impact in more relationships than we even are aware of. The book is really useful in helping couples better understand each others language and to treat each other in a way that they deserve. Love & respect are fundamental to strong friendships, and its strange why marriage should be exempt and still expected to thrive. Overall, this book got me thinking about how so much damage and emotional pain occurs when we do things out of ignorance of such a simple concept. Disclaimer would be that there are certainly other factors involved that make or break relationships, but this is one that needs to be addressed.

This marriage book is aimed at helping couples break free from their dysfunctional patterns and communication breakdowns. The book calls it 'the crazy cycle' when couples enter into a lose-lose argument with both parties left feeling confused and hurt. In order to breakout of this pattern, Eggerichs applies a biblical based framework for recognizing the needs of men and women. Man's biggest need according to Eggerichs is his need for respect and a woman's greatest need to be loved.

Now after reading the book, I have a better understanding of how I inadvertently trigger something in my wife, leaving her feeling like I'm withdrawing my love. And she too, had begun to be more aware when she stumbles into language that disrespects me and sends me running. Knowledge of how each of us operates based on language of love and respect can easily turn arguments around making them shorter in duration and less intense than before.

A while back my wife and I also attended a conference called Love and Respect put on by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs and his wife and it has made this book come more alive than perhaps it may have by simply reading it. The stories were helpful in this book, but having a real person in front of you sharing a personal story, as opposed to the story about 'Sarah' in the book, would make the experience and understanding of he topic more real. As it were, the books stories were helpful, but they were hard to totally identify with.

On the whole, I think my wife has benefited more from this book than I have. She is using words of respect that I really feel encouraged by. However, I've been left feeling still a little unclear of how to reframe my words of love towards her. Love is such an overly used word in our culture and it feels as if I'm left not knowing which words really hit home with her and which one's sound like a cheesy soap opera. This is my homework I guess to ask her when my words connect with her and when they don't.

Mars and Venus may be miles apart in make and operation, but they can co-exist relationship-wise peaceful and fulfilled. With practical insights into building relationships and the obvious, yet not so obvious 'conflict resolution', this book is unique in that it provides a voice to male reactions and outbursts, their motivations and causes. It explains that although unavoidable, they can be resolved when both partners learn to see beyond negative/hostile reactions/behaviours to what these imply and ways in which to address them that will build the relationship. Although based on a Biblical quote or two, it is a reservoir of wisdom for the frustrated fe/male who has uttered the proverbial, "I just don't understand men/women".

On a personal note, having begun the book, I applied a truth from Chapter 2 which explained the rationale behind female criticism, and was amazed at the result. Grieved ego shelved, I continued reading.