Today we have a guest post from Darlene Schacht, also known as The Time-Warp Wife! I love her commitment to encouraging women in their marriages and she has a new book on that very topic! I can’t wait for you to read her words today AND enter the giveaway at the bottom!
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I like it when Michael shows how much he loves me by spending time with me, buying gifts of chocolate, or taking care of little things around the house. My husband has learned how to speak my love language and he does it so well.
In fact a few weeks ago he came home with a bouquet of chocolate bars. It was so sweet of him! I think he figures that they’ll last longer than flowers. Ha!
I love that man.
While Michael also deserves my love in return, time has shown me that he also needs something else–my respect.
He needs to know that there are qualities about him that I admire. He should be told that he’s doing a great job leading our family. And he deserves to know how much we appreciate the job he does outside of the home.
Those are a few of the ways that I can show him how much he’s respected.
There’s a popular mindset that tells us, “Respect needs to be earned.” In other words it’s conditional on someone’s behavior toward us.
The problem with that way of thinking is that the minute we show disrespect to someone, their admiration toward us naturally goes down. The more their admiration toward us goes down, the less we respect them. See the negative cycle there?
Dr. Emerson, author of “Love and Respect” writes,
Though we all need love and respect equally, the felt need differs during conflict. For example, when a woman feels unloved during conflict, her natural reaction is to respond disrespectfully. And when a husband feels disrespected during conflict, his reaction is to respond unlovingly. We call this the Crazy Cycle: “Without love a wife reacts without respect, and without respect a husband reacts without love.”
For most couples it doesn’t happen over night, but many get caught up in the cycle and find that over the years their love and respect for each other is chipping away.
Long before marriage counselors discovered a woman’s desire for love and a man’s need for respect, the Holy Spirit inspired these words:
However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. – Ephesians 5:33, NIV
It’s true that we might not respect every thing that a husband does or says, but we offer respect by showing him the things we admire about him and loving him with a humble heart.
Why do we do it?
Our respect isn’t for the purpose of stroking their ego, or gaining their love in return (that is nice however!). We do it to glorify God and reflect the relationship between Jesus and his church. That’s the reason that marriage exists the way that it does.
Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. We’re talking about an imperfect church that didn’t deserve the grace of God. The Bible tells us that God demonstrated His love toward us while we were yet sinners.
If husbands are called to show that kind of love, shouldn’t we be expected to offer grace in return?
When we love people from that point of grace, we reverse the negative cycle. We respect them for the men that they, and they admire that quality in us.
In closing let’s look at 6 ways to show our husbands respect:
1. Allow him to lead – Colossians 3:18 tells us this, “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” Encourage him in his role as a husband and patiently allow him to lead.
2. Affirm him with words of encouragement and support – Tell him what a good job he’s doing. Be thankful for the sacrifices he makes. It’s easy to be a fault-finder, but those who seek to strengthen their marriage seek ways to build each other up.
3. Honor him in front of others – Whether he is in your presence or not, you can show respect to your husband by speaking kindly of him.
4. Pray for him – The best ways to respect your husband is to care for him spiritually. Bring him before the Lord daily asking that God will strengthen him, protect him, and guide him in wisdom.
5. Do your share – One thing I love about the Proverbs 31 woman is how she worked hard for her family. By taking care their home, she brought honor and respect to her husband.
6. Be content – It’s so much easier to complain about those things that we don’t have than to appreciate those that we have. But when we’re grateful for the things that we have, we offer respect to our husbands.
Maybe he doesn’t do everything that you wish he did, and maybe he can’t provide you with the things that you long for. But if you look around at the things that you do have, I suspect you’ll find much to be thankful for.
Darlene Schacht
www.timewarpwife.com
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How about that giveaway of Messy Beautiful Love?! I have THREE copies to give away! Just enter below!
Darlene Schacht is the well-known Time Warp Wife whose purpose in ministry is to encourage wives to put God first in their lives. She inspires us to love our husbands and children, and to be good homemakers. In doing so, we bring glory to God. God has created each one of us with a purpose, which is first and foremost to glorify Him. When we live as Jesus lived in obedience to the Bible, we bring glory to God, bring peace to our home, and draw closer to our husbands in the process.
Darlene is an Evangelical Christian who has been married to her husband Michael for over twenty-five years. They have four children and two adorable pugs. Their lives are basically surrounded by three things: faith, family, and books.
Her newest book, {affiliate link} Messy Beautiful Love: Hope and Redemption for Real-Life Marriages (Thomas Nelson), delivers an incredible testimony of grace that offers hope for today’s marriages and a spark for rekindling love.
Visit Darlene’s website at: www.TimeWarpWife.com
I'm Erin, a wife, boy mom x 3, writer, and runner in Nebraska! I'm excited to share all my favorites relating to faith, family, fashion, and fitness in this space! Enjoy! 
Allow him to lead. He is gone so much working that I go into automatic takeover mode with so many things.
“Allow him to lead”….I struggle with how to balance this with my independence, confidence, and “take charge” personality. Naturally, I am a leader, and I need to learn what “submitting” really means in our marriage.
Number one has got to be the aspect that I struggle with the most. Control over minor things and decisions is still control.
Pray for him- while I do this, I definitely need to be more diligent about it. Not just when things are challenging, but every day.
Thank you, Darlene. Your words are always timely, and uplifting!
This is a great post. Thank you for it. I need to focus on all of these in my marriage. We have a slightly non-traditional marriage in that he’s the SAHD and I work to provide for the family. Also, I was raised a Christian and he became one after we were married. It is difficult sometimes when you don’t fit the traditional mold.
Reading this has made me examine my attitude in conflict. Often times I refrain from saying much as not to say something hurtful or unnecessary. However, I know my attitude needs to change. I know that I must be hurting my husband’s respect for himself, despite my attempts not to. He is unable to work due to mental illness. I work and am in my fourth year of college. I still undertake all of the house work and preparing the meals because I know those are my responsibility. I feel like society puts me into a tug-of-war at times. In tiredness and frustration I resent doing it all, but ultimately, I know that it brings honor to my husband and to God. I also know that in my walk with God, I must be a willing and glad in heart to go about my tasks. The book of Ruth is such a source of wisdom to me.
Allow him to lead. I pray that our marriage is placed in God’s hands always and my husband can take my hand and lead us in God’s will.
Wow, this couldn’t have come at a better time. What great advice and wisdom to put into words of the vicious loss of respect and love cycle that my heart was never able to articulate. I am going to start these very six things to heal my marriage and the toxic patterns of communication we have created.
I want to pray for him more. He is such a hard working provider, I want him to feel the respect he deserves.
I need to pray for him more.
I struggle with the “Let him lead.” We are military so there are times when it is just me and I am responsible for everything, hard to turn that off sometimes!
I need to pray for him more consistently. First thing in the morning as he heads out to work, preferably! He is such a faithful husband and provider and is carrying a very heavy schedule right now, so he needs my prayer support every day.
I have very recently given the leadership of our family to.my husband. I’m really working hard on submitting and knowing what to say and when.
Affirm him with words of encouragement and support! They are all good!
I struggle with allowing him to lead. So often I want my own way but it’s so important to follow God’s direction and allow my husband to lead.
I have been in a rut of complaining about things he does or doesn’t do. I also need to pray daily for my marriage.
Love this!! Letting him Lead is my favorite!
Content. I always have to remember to be real…be content…not strive for perfection in others or myself. My husband is perfect…God made him for me.
I know that the second one, “Affirm him with words of encouragement and support” is the show of respect he most responds to because that is his love language.
I need to honor my husband both in front of him, and when he isn’t around. I admit I have not done that and I am choosing to look for the chance to do it in the future.
I need to honor my husband more when I am angry at him.
I really love this. I’m always trying to improve the way my marriage works. I think “doing my share” would be much more than keeping a clean house. Yes, my house is clean and he appreciates that, but he does so much with working, paying bills, remembering important things, money management, he always comes with us when he’s available to all soccer games, dance classes, school events, Etc. Maybe taking care of some things ahead of time would help him to slow down. He does too much 🙁 I can barely keep up. But maybe he can better enjoy time off when he doesn’t have some of those things to worry about.
We always love to read positive husband stories. There is a lot of bashing out there so we are happy to read this.
Thank u love all of these and I will be praying that i can respect my husband in these ways!
Let him lead more. Be more aware of that aspect of showing respect.
Thank you for sharing this! God bless your work!
So excited to possibly win this. Thank you so much!!!!
From just reading this article I am in love with this book. This will show me the light on how to make our marriage work. I am very independent, being a single mother for over 6 years has made me this way and I struggle daily with letting my husband actually be a HUSBAND. Maybe there is hope for me yet!
I need to work more on doing my share. I’ve had a hard time keeping up with the house and meals, since bringing our sick baby home. I need to push myself to make the time and get things done!
I need to respect his decision making and I pray to God to give my man love in his way.
I love finding new blogs/sites that encourage women to honor their husbands. In today’s society of feminists, it’s so refreshing. I cringe everytime I hear someone make a joke about or toward their husband. What would I like to work on more from the list? Probably contribute more. I have found that as my husband does more, I do less. He’ll do laundry so often, I just step back and let him. Instead I should be doing it before he can get to it. Wish me luck.
Which of the six ways of showing respect do you want to do more of in your marriage? I need to practice being more content in my marriage, pray more specifically for my husband and show him more words of encouragement and affection.
Thank you for this giveaway opportunity!! 🙂
I need to allow my husband to be the leader – I tell him that I want him to lead, and then I don’t always support him in this role, as I try to take control of decisions myself.
I need to work on letting my husband take the lead and be the leader.
He has worked nights for 11 years and is rarely with us during the day because of sleep and leaving around dinner time. I’m so used to making decisions while he is gone and sometimes it is hard to turn that off and let him take the lead when he is off and home with us.
I have never read something so disrespectful towards women in my entire life. Was this written by a woman? This is just sad. Please don’t teach your daughters that they need to let someone else lead. So so sad. 🙁 🙁 🙁
Like many other posters, I struggle with allowing my husband to lead. He is with working or spending time on his race car. I just go into autopilot and do what I have to do.
I struggle with the “do your share” thing too because for the most part anything that happens at home falls on me. Since he is gone so much, I do a lot on my own so when he complains that something isn’t done, I feel unappreciated and unloved because that one thing may not have gotten done but I do a lot of other stuff. Why pick on the negative?
I wrote about this same thing last week on my blog! http://www.allforhimblog.com/faith/marriage-monday-respect/
I think it’s one of those things that’s so very important in a marriage, and a husband and wife both have to work hard to respect each other.