Eggerichs, Emerson. Love and Respect. Nashville: Integrity, 2004.
When I first heard about this book a few years ago, it was misrepresented a little. There was a lot of discussion about the concept that wives should give their husbands unconditional respect. This was a novel idea, which may be why it got most of the attention, and many women met it with confusion and suspicion.
The book has just as much to say to husbands, and it directs them to give unconditional love to their wives. In fact, as the title implies, love and respect go hand in hand.
The basic premise is that women value love and men value respect. This leads them to have very different perspectives. In a marriage, these differing perspectives can cause serious misunderstanding that spin out of control.
Eggerichs refers to this situation as the crazy cycle. Trying to get love from their husbands, women do things that seem disrespectful to men. Trying to get respect from their wives, men do things that seem unloving to their wives. Without live, wives react without respect. Without respect, husbands act without live. Unless one of the spouses steps up to try something different, this cycle accelerates, damaging the marriage.
That leads to the alternative, which Eggerichs calls the energizing cycle. A wife’s respect motivates her husband’s love. A husband’s love motivates his wife’s respect. I doesn’t matter which spouse starts, but someone has to start even though it can be difficult. Eggerichs' confidence that this will work is in his assumption that each spouse has good will. It not a spouse’s intent to be disrespectful or unloving, they’re just trying a misguided strategy to get the respect or love they desire. When one spouse makes the effort to treat the other respectfully or lovingly, the other will be won over and respond with love or respect. It is an application to marriage of Zig Ziglar’s axiom that you can get what you want by helping others get what they want. A couple that makes a concerted effort to treat each other this way can keep themselves energized and spend a lot less time on the crazy cycle.
In the life of a Christian, there is a relationship that is even more important than the marriage. Our relationship with God is the basis of the rewarded cycle. Regardless of how our spouse reacts, when we treat them with love and respect, we are being loving, respectful and obedient to God. God, who is looking to give eternal rewards to his children for good works, takes pleasure in this. (Eggerichs’ isn’t saying we earn salvation through any kind of good work because that is the free gift of God in Christ and something we could never get on our own merits.) This life of obedience can lead to a freedom, maturity and relationship with God that is joyful and valuable even for those who can draw their spouses onto the energizing cycle.
Most of the chapters are devoted to the energizing cycle and how wives can show respect to their husbands and husbands can show respect to their wives. Eggerichs uses helpful anagrams. Each of these chapters ends with a short list of practical ways to show love or respect to a spouse. The appendices also include ways to remind ourselves to be loving or respectful and to ask for the love or respect we need.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
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