Love and Respect

"So each husband should love his wife as much as he loves himself, and each wife should respect her husband."
Ephesians 5:33 CEV 

My church, Lake Pointe, has been doing a new message series called Fixing Your Marriage. The first message was given by Steve Stroope and was centered around this verse. He called the message "The Foundation of Love and Respect".

That Sunday, I had gone to church with Sophie and left Ben at home with a sick Milly and an iffy Gideon. I sat alone in the service listening to Steve talk about how women and men need different things on which to feel "sturdy" in their marriage. He likened it to how we as humans can go for 3 days without food but only 3 days without water.


In marriage, a woman's water is love and a man's water is respect.


This hit me hard and made me listen very close. I knew that men and women were different. Heck, I learned that lesson back in elementary school when the boy I liked acted like a jerk to me and expected me to figure it out that it meant that he liked me back! (Boys are WEIRD.) I just thought that once we hit a certain age that everyone needed love. It's true that we all need love but men feel loved in a different way. They need to know that they are respected. They feel this way in their jobs, by their children and especially by their wives.


Disrespect from a wife can crush a man. Did you know that we hold that kind of power?


Unfortunately, I had no idea how to speak that language. I know my husband's Love Language but how does that translate into respecting him? Is it the same? Is it made of actions or is it done with words? If broken does it take years to repair or can I apologize and fix it with immediate action?


It made me nervous. This is the foundation we're talking about here. I live in a tiny rental house with horrible foundation problems that affect EVERY SINGLE THING in the house. The doors don't close correctly, the plumbing is wonky, the tile gets more crooked every day, the paint is cracked, and so on. When I think about this in regards to my marriage then I get very concerned.


So I went to God. We're still talking it over and rolling out some new programs. There seems to be good feedback. I'm grateful for that message.


How do you show respect to your husband? Does he know what he needs? Can you ask him? Are you showing it now?