Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs
Posted: June 24th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: Committed Relationship | Tags: desires, Desperately, love, Most, Needs, Respect | 5 Comments »
- ISBN13: 9781591451877
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
A Marriage Book with a Difference! A Revolutionary Message “I’ve been married 35 years and have not heard this taught.” “This is the key that I have been missing.” “A lightbulb moment.” “You connected all the dots for me.” “As a counselor, I have never been so excited about any material.” “You’re on to something huge here.” A Simple Message A wife has one driving need — to feel loved. When that need is met, she is happy. A husband has one driving need — to feel respected. When that need is met, he is happy. When either of these needs isn’t met, things get crazy. “Love and Respect” reveals why spouses react negatively to each other, and how they can deal with such conflict quickly, easily … More >>
Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs
I thought the principal behind the book was something that will help virtually every married couple. My husband and I laughed at sections b/c we found some of the anecdotes so spot on to our daily lives. Eggerichs clearly explained to us why we keep going through the “Crazy Cycle.” The Respect/Love needs in men/women is potentially a marriage saver or breaker.
I have 2 constructive criticisms of the book. I still recommend this book, however I do give these caveats:
1. This book talks as if men know how to love their wives. There may be a million books out there on how to do it, but we didn’t have those. My husband and I were reading this one. And I grew weary of hearing how women needed to learn to respect their husbands. Frankly, I grasped the principal within the first few pages. After a few chapters, I felt like rolling my eyes a little. Because he paid so little attention to talking about how men should love their wives, it felt like that part was very trivialized. I understand that was not the point, however, the title was “Love & Respect”, not just “Respect.”
2. I would have liked more tangible examples of exactly what it means to “Respect” my husband. I want to do it. And he made it clear that “nagging, complaining, and whining” at him were disrespectful. But I need more examples. What are the active things I can do? Is it disrespectful to remind my husband to take the garbage out the night before? If it is, then how do I make sure the task gets done w/out reminding him? It isn’t an issue of control, but I have to get the kids out the door in the morning and I need help and I need him to do this one thing. Make sense? I need to know how to have those discussions w/out disrespecing him.
I hestitate to use this as a small group book b/c it is so one-sided. And it tends to repeat itself. Again, I got the principal pretty quickly. And as good as it is, after a while, enough is enough. Another reviewer said it felt a bit like a brochure for the conference. That is exactly how I felt.
A good book? Yes. A helpful principle? Absolutely. A must-read? Maybe. But definitely helpful to a Christian marriage and therefore, I do and would recommend it.
Rating: 4 / 5
The good:
1) I like the connection between love and respect. Every time he says husbands need respect and wives need love, you have to translate that mentally into *both* husbands *and* wives need love *and* respect, but the basic premise is a good one — the Christian understanding of love indicates an attitude of honoring, respecting, and blessing the other person.
2) The crazy cycle and reward cycle. This is one of the most important things most couples could learn. Our behaviors are self-reinforcing and good things to lead to more good things in a cycle. Likewise, bad things often lead to more bad things. The good news is that we serve a God of redemption and just as the gospel message teaches us that Christ breaks us out of a cycle of sin, God can redeem broken marriages and break them out of destructive cycles.
3) For *some* couples, a disrespectful attitude toward the husband or an unloving attitude toward the wife *is* the problem. For those relationships, I imagine they would benefit greatly from this book.
The not-so-good:
1) As mentioned by several reviewers already, the book is incredibly sexist. I started making a `W’ in the margins when Dr. Eggerichs blamed the wife for the problem and a `H’ when he blamed the husband. Skimming back through, it’s about 90% W’s. Just about any time he says something negative about the husband, you are almost guaranteed to get a follow-up sentence about how his wife’s pettiness or nagging or belittling comments or criticizing or bitterness or whatever was really the root cause of the husband’s behavior. At times, it was to the point I thought he was emasculating men by making us out to be powerless — we can’t take responsibility for our own behavior because every issue is probably our wife’s fault anyway.
2) It’s kindof a continuation of #1, but I honestly can’t believe he found a man and a *woman* to blame the husband’s marital infidelity on the wife. Finding a man who wants to justify his immorality by blaming his wife shouldn’t be too hard, but Dr. Eggerichs found a woman who blamed *herself* for her husband’s philandering. The idea that a man has so little control over his own actions that he is to be expected to wander if his wife doesn’t `put out’ often enough is just galling.
3) The narrowness of the focus. As I mentioned above, a disrespected husband or unloved wife is a problem for some couples. But there’s lots of reasons marriages struggle, and disrespect is only one of the possibilities. Dr. Eggerichs doesn’t acknowledge that at all.
4) He spends quite a bit of energy being defensive about it, so Dr. Eggerichs clearly realizes that the idea of unconditional respect has some problems. I honestly don’t see the appeal of unconditional respect. If I want respect from my wife (which I most certainly do!), I will act in a way that *deserves* respect. Why would I demand her unconditional respect regardless of my actions unless I couldn’t be bothered to earn it?
Rating: 2 / 5
A marvelous book that far surpasses earlier Christian (e.g., His Needs, Her Needs) and secular (e.g., Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus) treatments of the topic. While other books have identified a variety of gender-based psychological and biological differences, Dr. Eggerich provides a framework (Love/Respect) that is beautiful for both its simplicity and its ability to explain these gender differences as part of God’s plan for men, women, and marriage.
Some reviewers will undoubtedly write-off the book as full of “sexist stereotypes.” In contrast, I found the book to reveal profound truths that are just as relevant to someone like me – a professor at a major university who would describe her marriage as “egalitarian” – as to women who have chosen more traditional roles.
Rating: 5 / 5
Love and Respect is one of the finest books I have read on the topic of male female communication. As this book gains more and more exposure it will go down as a must own in Christian marriage counseling. Not only did I order the book, but I also ordered the 9 cd set on the same topic and the workbooks “Motivating Your Man God’s Way. I am a single living in New York and this book contains tremendous material for singles that will prove to be invaluable once they get married. I have taught much of the content in our bible studies. The purchasing of this book may be the single greatest investment you can man make to learn about the opposite sex, and have a God centered marriage.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book was recommended to us by our counselor. She is recommending it to every single one of the couples she counsels or has counseled. That’s how much she believes in this book. My husband and I read the introduction and knew right away that it was going to help us build a stronger foundation and have a better marriage. The concept is so simple – he needs respect and she needs to know she’s loved – but you’ll have an A-HA moment and know that it’s so very true. The book will feel like it’s talking directly to you. Every couple should read this book – happy couples and couples in trouble.
Rating: 5 / 5