Relationships struggle simply because we try to control how the other person loves us or how we need them to love us. If we can understand or learn how our partner was influenced by love and what they learned, then we can see why they love us the way they do. Listen to this episode and learn how to get your spouse to love you the way you need to be loved.

Key Takeaways:

• Understanding love means knowing and understanding how your love or how you were influenced by love.

• You are who you hang around with, or you're the sum of the five people you hang around with.

• Control is a very toxic trait in anybody's life, no matter who you are or what you do.

• Leading your family will put you in direct alignment with the way, especially if you're doing it under the covenant of God.

Tweetable Moments:

1. “Love is caught not taught.”

2. “It's not the communication that we have, it's the communication we don't have.”

Connect with Joseph James:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meetjjames

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/252908273026721

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meetjosephjames/

 Hey everyone, and welcome to another great show of Purpose Through Pain podcast. I am your host, Joseph James, and also the host of Alpha Leadership Coaching Love. Let's talk about love today. Let's talk about how it affects us and how biblically we can love one another. According to what God says, guys, men were created to love women, women were love or created to love. But there's a huge disconnect when it comes to our marriages and our communication. When this is a thing that I see constantly all throughout people that I coach, and I'm talking about marriage and relationships, is women have an idea of what love is and men have their idea of what love is. And before we get into the idea of love and whether it's right or wrong, ‘cause I'll never sit there and say that your idea is wrong, but a thing that can help us when it comes to loving one another or maybe even understanding the love is knowing and understanding how your love or how you were influenced by love. And what I mean by this right here is love to me, growing up was shown by my father and mother. My father was very abusive, physically and verbally to not only my mother, but also to myself and my siblings. So was that a good definition of love or good influence of love? No, it wasn't. But I also saw some things about my dad that he taught us in terms of respect. Opening closing doors? Yes ma'am, no ma'am. Yes sir, no sir. Okay, and there was a lot of love in our family, but it was also portrayed in different ways, I could have went down the road of abuse. I could have went down the road of just loving people. I began the road of hating because I saw so much anger from my dad. However, growing up in a faith-based family, in a faith-based home, I knew that's not how I was supposed to treat people, the other people around me were loving. Not that I didn't know what was going on behind their closed doors, but ultimately it was something different than what I was experience. And so as I grew older, I knew that's not the way I wanted to treat people, was be angry and hateful. So I said a prayer one day and just everything just stopped in my life when it came to acting like that, and I began to change my heart and really begin to love on people, and my influence of love started off one way, but then it became, or it changed by the different people I was hanging around. It's no different than the saying of you are who you hang around, or you're the sum of the five people you hang around, case in point, if you hang around drug dealers, more than likely you're gonna become one, if you hang around drug addicts, alcoholics, abusers, lovers, millionaires, you are going to become one entrepreneurs, it doesn't matter, okay? It's the influence that you have. So ladies, when it comes to your man loving you, whether it's a boyfriend, a spouse, a fiance, whatever the case, okay? When it comes to, them loving you, it's very easy to say, why can't you love me the way that I need to be loved? Because we do need love, we do need to be loved a certain way. I'm a firm believer in that, okay, A great book out there called The Five Love Languages. It talks about how you as an individual receive or want to receive love, okay? And how your language is of love, and so it's very easy for us to say, why can't you love me this way? Maybe they're not loving you the way that you want, or it's meeting your emotional needs, I'm talking to women right now for this second, okay. We know that women need their emotional needs met. If a man meets a woman's emotional needs, we get our physical needs met, we just, that's just the way we're wired, okay? But a lot of times is men aren't loving wives, they're girlfriends, their fiances the way they truly need to be loved. And the flips the, it could be said the flip side also, okay. But if we looked at it this way, women take a step back for a second and I want you to ask yourself, where did your husband or your significant other learn to love? Was it from his parents? Did he live in a dysfunctional home, was he even raised at home? Was he a foster child? What did he run away from home? Did he raise himself? Did he live in a godly home? Did he, ask yourself those questions, where did he learn how to love? If you can't answer that, or if you do, then think, is that the model of love that I want? Is that what I want him to show me? If it's not? Then I want to give you a little piece of things, something that you can work on, okay? Start showing him how you want to be loved. I didn't say tell, I said show, okay. Love is caught not taught. What I mean by that is you can sit there until you're blue in the face and tell your husband or your significant other how you want to be loved and the, and it just may not click, okay. You can sit there and say over and over, alright. But if you simply show him how you want to be loved, okay? I'll give you an example. My soon-to-be wife and most of you know that have been listeners, I lost my wife of 14, almost 15 years, four years ago to cancer, and I have been engaged for a year and soon to be married. She loves getting notes, notes saying, I love you, you're my king, you're my queen, things that encourage her, alright. And there are times that I would write them and then there's times that I would forget and I would get busy, doesn't mean that I didn't love her, but I wasn't feeding into her the way that she needs love. She kept on telling me, oh, I love notes, why don't you write me notes anymore? Why don't you write? And I got defensive, I really did, I took it defensive because the moment for most men, the moment we are being told what to do, we start getting defensive. We throw up our walls and then we back out, okay? And there's no doubt that women can be the same way, okay? But if a woman will begin to show her husband or significant other how she wants to be loved, then he is learning how you want, not being told how you want it or what you need, but showing him. ‘cause here's the thing, ladies, if you understand how he was influenced and the way that he's loving you now, okay? And you take a step back and say, I'm not going to tell him what I need because the moment you start saying, why can't you love me the way I need, you are now controlling. Control is a very toxic trait in anybody's life, no matter who you are or what you do, control is very toxic. Nobody wants to be controlled, okay? But if you will show him the way that you desire to be loved, then what will happen is as that continues to happen, he'll catch on. He'll catch on to the messages that you are showing him not telling him, showing him, so that when you are ready, when that day comes, you understand that he has influenced a certain way that you desire something a certain way, and you've been showing him, he will now go from loving him the way that he knows how, the way that he was taught, the way that he was influenced, okay, to now loving you the way that you need. When you guys can do that, then, oh, then, oh, then, okay, your love will go through the roof, because now you're on a level of communication that a lot of people aren't. Why are marriages in shambles today? It's not the communication that we have, it's the communication we don't have. And women, I always say this, women want to tell men, in descriptive form how they want to be loved. Men want to receive in picture form, how they should love, think about directions to a bicycle that has to be put together. Men will skip over everything written to look for the pictures, why don't these things have pictures? I can't believe it doesn't have pictures. So now we have YouTube and all these different things, and we see a video, all right. Now, not saying that some men don't want descriptive writings okay. But for the most part, we learn in pictures, okay? A lot of people are very visual. So ladies, if you will show us in pictures, and I doesn't, I don't mean draw two little stick figures and show them kissing each other, all right? Even though that may be funny and it may work, okay? Find a way to be creative on showing him how you want to be loved, it may be the notes, when my fiance started writing me the notes, I'm like, okay, I know what she needs, I need to start writing her notes. And then I would do the same thing for her. I would write things in a descriptive form because that's how she was, she likes details, so I would give her details about how I love her. Sweetheart, do you love me? Yes, of course. Tell me the ways. Oh, Lord, I'm thinking in pictures, but I gotta figure out how to take this picture out of my mind and put it, baby, I love the way your hair looks, baby, I love your eyes, baby, I love the way you talk to me, I love the way you help with the kids. Those things were descriptive for her, okay, so guys, I just wanted to encourage you today that you can, no matter where your relationship is at, no matter what's going on, the troubles the finances, whatever the case may be, that God is a God of restortion. He can heal your relationship, He can bring it back not to where it was, but better and further along, and where it was to the place that he's going, that he's taking you, okay? Come in alignment when a husband, if you guys are struggling with love, I wanna tell you something. If you're struggling in your marriage and relationship with each other, majority of the time, it's because the man is not in alignment as the leader within the home, leading your family will put you in direct alignment with the way, especially if you're doing it in under the covenant of God, okay. Will put yourself in a better position to love each other, okay? And have a so much of a better relationship that can be healed of all the past trauma, the hurt, the pain, the guilt, the mistakes, the baggage that was brought, the triggers, all of it.

So guys, I love you, stay tuned because next week we're gonna talk about how men were created and designed to lead their families and how women were called, created to be their helpmate. This is not about control or domination, absolutely not. This is about love, this is about alignment with God. So hope you guys enjoy, stay tuned, and if you have not already, please go to Apple, go on our podcast, leave a five star review or leave any review, I'm open for any reviews, five stars help, let us know how this means to you. You can always message us and if you have not checked us out, check out our Alpha Leadership Coaching, coaching Men on Marriage, leading marriage, leading their children, leading them businesses, and leading themself in direct alignment with what God has called us to be.

I love you guys and stay tuned for next show.