What do You think about Love And Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs (2004)?
Mixed feelings about this book. The central premise was very insightful if not necessarily profound, namely that unconditional respect and love is our duty to God and our spouses. Additionally, he correctly diagnoses a lack of unconditional respect as being the hidden root of much marriage conflict. He notes that the idea of a husband unconditionally loving his wife is universally known if not completely obeyed and therefore spends a lot of time unpacking the idea that a wife should unconditionally respect her husband. This was a reasonable strategy and he adequately justifies the decision to spend more pages on the duty of wives to their husbands (though the idea that the shortcomings of wives is the sole focus of this book - as indicated by many negative reviews - is laughable).Sadly, he falls into a besetting sin of evangelicalism. Namely, taking a genuinely helpful principle and undermining it with overkill. This should have been a 100 page book. The degree of repetitiveness would make a broken record green with envy. He probably could have cut the illustrations in half (though many were helpful). He also used his wife as a negative illustration multiple times (including somehow turning a story about forgetting her birthday into an illustration of her lack of respect!). My advice for men writing marriage books: if you use your own marriage for negative examples, make sure your stories about yourself outnumber those about your wife by at least a 2:1 ratio.We used this book in a marriage small group at our church. Overall it served its purpose to stimulate discussion and provide genuinely helpful teaching. However, it felt like it didn't have an editor. I think watching DVDs with the same teaching would have been a better use of our time. I wonder if publishing the book was just a money grab by Integrity Publishers and the author.
—Jay
The best marriage book I've found so far. Based on the fact that women need love and men need respect. For years that concept turned me off of reading this book, until the wall was so great that I had nowhere else to turn to find out how to talk to my husband again. This book saved my marriage by teaching me how to talk to my hubby in a way that showed him what I was feeling in my heart in a way he understood.By the way, I don't recommend taking this book from page 1 if you are in dire straights. Instead read the chapters that call out to you the most i.e. She Fears Being a Doormat; He's Tired of "Just Not Getting It" and She Worries About Being a Hypocrite; He Complains "I Get No Respect!" In the end I didn't read the entire book but what I did read gave me more than enough to initiate breaking down the wall with my hubby. Thank God.
—Pink
I don’t know if everyone will view this book with the same ‘Aha’ I did or if it is just the timing in my life. Some women don’t like this book because they view it as blaming women; my husband hates every sermon on marriage because he views it as blaming men. I think this book is very balanced and contains the proper amount of disclaimers on stereotypes, etc; and gives hundred examples of how both sides can start off the crazy cycle of her disrespect makes him unloving, repeat (though once he said the wife being critical and negative often kicks it off…). He takes one verse in the Bible and writes a long book on it, this bothers some people, though he does refer to other scripture as it pertains; and if you don’t like personal stories, then this book will drive you crazy. The concepts of ‘blue/pink’ and crazy cycle are named rather cheesiely, but as still good concepts. I didn't read the middle section addressed to men on showing love so I can’t judge that yet. Some say that he says the women should take the start but the book clearly says whoever feels they are more mature should be the one to die to self and start off the positive cycle. But back to women feeling blamed, really if you think about it, what is more liberating-saying things are bad and are mostly his fault so I’ll just wait and hope things get better and he will love me the way I want OR saying things are bad and they are part his fault and part mine (and the my part could be anywhere from 1% to 99%, as Bill Clinton says, “No one is right all the time and a broken clock is right two times a day.” though he was referring to politics not marriage, anyway), so let me take some principles and work on self improvement in showing respect and see what happens, which could 1-be complete restoration as my respect motivates his love or 2-somewhat improvement or 3-nothing changes except me realizing that I am obeying God’s word to unconditionally respect my husband?Some good thoughts to remember:We often think all are supposed to love unconditionally but people have to earn respect, this isn’t true, both should be given unconditionally in obedience to God.Women don’t often stop to think of the ways we are behaving disrespectfully. We often think we have things together at home and scheduling, etc and order our husbands around but then lament that they then aren’t more leaders. We often think that we have things more together spiritually and lovingly try to change them to our image of what a Christian husband should be and make them feel judged and guilty. We often try to behave as their Holy Spirit instead of (this is biblical too, and until reading this book I don’t think I understood it) letting our quietness and respect change hearts. We try to change them and even when motivated by love, don’t realize that it comes across as disrespect. We often are tired and grouchy and negative around our husbands and save our best behavior for the world when really we need some self control and to go to God to vent. Often we give the impression (often unknowingly) that while we love our husbands we don’t really like them, which makes them feel contempt and can totally ruin a relationship. (and don’t worry in all these topics he gives lots of disclaimers about abuse, the need for honesty, etc)He gives lots of great practically examples about words to use, keeping it light and how to remember that men and women see the world, their relationships and communication in different lights.I could go on and I really should read it again but hopefully others will read this to improve an already good marriage. Of course this book isn’t the only word out there; there is much more to having a good marriage and much more in the Bible on the topic but for any couple who has been bombarded with the guy just needs to shape up message, or someone who wants a different look from the ‘just love more’ idea, this is a great book.
—Elizabeth
