Love and Respect

Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs addresses the need of women to be loved and men to be respected along the way to a successful marriage.

With lots of personal examples and scriptural back up Dr. Eggerichs takes the theory that men's needs differ from women's needs and attempts to teach us how to use that knowledge to strengthen our marriages.

This book is written in the same vein as Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages. It shows that what one person does to show their love to their spouse isn't necessarily what the spouse needs to feel loved.

The stress here is "unconditional". We can't say I'll respect you if... or I'll love you if.... We have to give these things freely. Marriage is a reflection of God's love for us which is unconditional.

Dr. Eggerichs shows the catch-22 many of us fall into and calls it the Crazy Cycle. It’s the old thing of the wife thinking “when he shows me he loves me I’ll show him I respect him” while the husband is thinking “I’ll show her some love when she starts showing me some respect”. But I think the big problem is most of us don’t even realize we’re thinking that way. This is another way this book would be a great companion to Chapman’s Love Languages – it shows that not everyone sees the love or respect in the same way. Women may think they are doing everything they would want done for them but it falls short with the men because men are looking for different signs and vice versa.

A good book with a lot of good “gender” insights that help us all to see that men and women are created differently but with a little knowledge we can make those things work together and have a great marriage.