What if many of the conflicts in your marriage could be traced back to two simple but powerful needs: love and respect?

In today’s episode, we sit down with renowned marriage counselor Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, who shares insights gained from more than 30 years of helping couples build healthier, stronger relationships. Together, we explore the often-overlooked dynamics that can create tension, misunderstanding, and emotional distance between spouses.

Dr. Eggerichs explains his powerful concept of the "Crazy Cycle"—the destructive pattern where a wife feels unloved and responds in ways that feel disrespectful, while a husband feels disrespected and responds by withholding love. Left unchecked, this cycle can lead to resentment and disconnection.

You'll discover:

✅ How love and respect impact every marriage

✅ Why couples get stuck in recurring conflicts

✅ Practical ways to break the "Crazy Cycle"

✅ How to communicate with greater understanding and empathy

✅ Simple mindset shifts that can transform your relationship

Whether your marriage is thriving or facing challenges, this conversation is packed with wisdom, real-life examples, and actionable advice that can help you reconnect and strengthen your bond.

Takeaways:

• Effective communication within a marriage hinges on understanding the fundamental need for both love and respect, as articulated by Dr. Emerson Eggert throughout this enlightening episode.
• The notion that couples often find themselves entrenched in recurring arguments can be attributed to a profound misunderstanding of one another's emotional needs, which, if addressed, could lead to significant resolution.
• Dr. Eggerichs emphasizes that the cycle of love and respect is crucial to breaking negative relational patterns, thereby fostering a healthier and more fulfilling partnership between spouses.
• A pivotal revelation from this discussion is the idea that our individual responses to conflict are shaped more by our internal struggles than by our partner's actions, highlighting the importance of self-reflection in relationships.
• The podcast elaborates on the 'crazy cycle' of misunderstandings in marriages, stressing that recognizing and valuing each other's perspectives can pave the way for deeper connection and empathy.
• Ultimately, the episode underscores that marriages thrive not solely on love or respect, but on a balanced interplay of both, necessitating intentional effort and understanding from both partners.

Links referenced in this episode:

• loveandrespect.com

Mentioned in this episode:

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Welcome to Becoming Bridge Builders, a podcast where we explore how to strengthen relationships, deepen understanding, and build bridges that truly last. What if one simple truth could transform your marriage, your communication, and your entire relationship dynamic?

Why do so many couples feel stuck in the same arguments, the same misunderstandings, and the same emotional distance despite loving each other deeply? Today's guest has spent over 30 years uncovering the answer. And it all comes down to two powerful love and respect.

If you've ever wondered how to speak negative, break negative cycles, and build stronger, healthy relationships, this episode is for you.

We are honored to have with us Dr. Emerson Eggert, an international recognized speaker on male female relationships with over three decades of counseling experience.

Along with scientific and biblical research, Emerson and his wife Sarah developed the widely known Love and Respect Conference, which has helped restore and strengthen countless relationships around the world.

He's also the author of the national bestseller Love and Respect, a platinum award book winner and the book of the year with over 2.3 million copies sold.

As the founder and president of Love and Respect Ministries, Emerson continues to equip couples and families to through his books, conferences, and online marriage and parenting courses. Doctor, welcome to the podcast.

Well, Keith, thank you. Doctor. Reverend, thank you so much.

So good to have you on. I'm looking forward to this conversation, how we're going to pour into people's lives and hopefully strengthen some relationships.

So looking forward to this?

Yes, yes, very much so.

I'm going to ask you my favorite question that kind of gets everything started. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

The best that I've ever received.

Yep.

Don't met. Don't mess it up. There you go. No, I mean, it depends on the felt need during that season of life.

You know, you, I mean, there are, you know, Evan Welsh, who was the chaplain of Wheaton College when I attended Wheaton, was just a godly humble man and he really influenced me a great deal. And one time I was asking why he was so holy and he just sidestepped that question.

He wouldn't respond to it, but I kept pushing into it as a 20 year old and he said, I'm not holy. But he had lost his wife and mother, excuse me, his wife and daughter in an automobile accident and he had suffered a great deal.

And, but he was greatly beloved at Wheaton. And I just kept asking him, he said, well, I don't see myself as holy, but I will tell you, he here's one thing that I do.

And I'm sitting in this beautiful chair in front of this fire and a cold, Chicago windy night. I am just depleted. And I think, I don't want to go out. I do not want to go out. I. And I just. But I. I force myself to get out of the chair.

I go to the closet. I put on my coat, my scarf, my gloves, my hat. And when I touch the doorknob, the spirit of Christ comes.

The Holy Spirit comes, but not until I touch that doorknob. And he used that metaphor and.

Which was really kind of true in his experience, to say, you know, there's a level of obedience first, and you just have to respond to that and be faithful in that, and then the Lord will pick you up from that moment. So that's one of those early moments. I remember sitting down. I was just in Christ for, you know, 24 months. At that point.

I was a new believer, and I was just soaking that in. And that really is one of those first lessons. I thought, wow, that really spoke to my heart.

I love that. That's a great example. And it's. It's. So as you think about your life as a. Of servant and as a pastor or as that, that's always helpful.

For me, it's like, I'm not better than anybody else. I just have a unique calling in life.

And if I remember that, I have a unique calling and a unique responsibility, and it's really the power of God that helps me do all of this. It keeps me grounded.

Yeah, yeah. And you've heard the expression, I'm just one beggar telling another beggar where the bread is, Right, Exactly. Have you heard that?

No, I haven't, but I loved it.

Oh, years ago. I think during those early days with Evan Welsh, I'm just one beggar. Tell another beggar where the bread is. That's.

So we've got the bread, but we're no different. The playing ground is level, but we do have something to offer. And even in the ministry.

And I was talking to somebody the other day that you and I both know that when we're really discouraged as pastors, you know, it's been a bad board meeting. You know, there's all. Mrs. McGillicuddy is complaining. You know, you have all of these issues going on.

You know, the word is, go to the hospital and visit someone who's dying and pray with them.

And you and I know that when we leave that hospital an hour later, our spirits have been lifted because we are grateful again for all that God's given to us. And that person may have ministered to us. We were undeserving of their comments to us. But I think that idea of, you know, reaching out, I love it.

I want to ask you about your first book before we get into your new book. I know you're, we're going to dig into that a little bit more, but your first book, Love and Respect, has impacted millions of couples.

What inspired you to write that book in the first place?

Well, as a pastor for 19 years, Trinity Church in East Lansing, Michigan, a college town. Michigan State University's there, the Spartans. And it was a church started by a group of professors and just, it was an exciting ministry.

But they wanted me to study the Bible 30 hours a week for the exposition of scripture on Sunday morning. And that was a great privilege. They also saw me probably as slow, so I need more time to study.

But I came across the verse at the end of Ephesians 5, which some would consider the greatest treatise on marriage in the New Testament. And Paul summarizes it by saying, husbands must love their wives and, and then wives, respect your husbands.

And of course, there was no debate with the first part, but over the years, women have said, well, he hasn't earned the respect. He doesn't deserve the respect. He's not superior to me. I'm not inferior to him. I'm not going to be treated like a doormat.

I'm not going to set the feminist move it back 75 years by going along with your theory. Emerson. Certainly I'm not going to go along with what I think is your hidden agenda, and that's to return to patriarchy and really put women down.

I'm not going to subject myself to emotional abuse. I'm not going to give him license to do whatever he wants to do.

But hey, other than these things, I'm really open to hearing what you have to say about this.

Oh, my word.

So, Keith, I knew and women are not mean spirited. They're fearful. There's a fear that they're gonna be dismissed, that they're gonna be put down. It's fear. It's not selfishness per se.

It's not meanness. It's a fear.

I've done this long enough now to know that she fears she's gonna somehow be dismissed or lowered in this thing if she respects somebody who she doesn't see as superior and she's not inferior. And the dictionary says you show respect to your superiors. He's not superior to me. We're equal.

So what my mission has been is to did that meaning of respecting your husband. Is that what Paul meant? And Peter parallel in his first Peter 3, says you can win a disobedient husband.

Disobedient the word through your respectful behavior. So both Paul and Peter, they never command a wife to come agape love a husband in the marriage portions of scripture. That isn't there.

And I believe that's because God put it within my wife's heart. Sarah and your wife and, and all those who are married, they love to love. They, they, they have a nurturing nature.

You have to wound a woman at the level of intimacy to get her to stop loving in the marital relationship. And so I conclude the Lord is, is not going to command a wife to love because he created her to love. That would be redundancy.

And so it's natural for her to be loving. That's why there's no imperative to agape love in the marital context. Whereas I am commanded to do that because I don't love naturally like Sarah.

We've been married over 50 years. I don't love naturally like she does. So then the question is, why are wives being instructed, commanded, imperative to respect?

Because it's natural for a woman to be disrespectful when she feels unloved. That would be perhaps the most foundational issue. And most men are not in the marriage conflict. They don't call their wife unloving.

Very few men would ever say, unless she says, I don't love you anymore. He doesn't think she's unloving. He knows she's loving, but he doesn't think she likes him. And so this gave birth to what I call the crazy cycle.

Because as I meditated on this, if this is from God's heart and Paul said in Ephesians 3, that which has been hidden in ages past has been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit.

And so I believe that this is from the heart of our Heavenly Father, then there must be a secret here, hidden in plain sight that's really empowering, not belittling. But here was the crazy cycle. When Sarah feels unloved, she tends to react in negative ways.

Ways she doesn't default to positivity, she defaults to a negative way that comes across to me as disrespectful. And when I feel disrespected, I don't feel unloved. Incumbent, I feel disrespected.

Right or wrong, as how I'm feeling it, I then react in ways that feel unloving to her. And I've asked 7,000 people this question. I have my PhD in family studies.

When you're in a conflict with your spouse, are you more likely to feel unloved at that moment? Are more likely to feel disrespected. And Keith, 83% of the men, and we did this research Again and again, 83% of the men say they feel disrespected.

72% Of the women say they feel unloved. And so if that's the case, and women need resp. We know that. And men need L O V, E. We're not talking about the true needs.

We're talking about the felt need during conflict. And we also don't see at the end of any movie where the hero embraces the damsel and says, I want to respect you the rest of my life. It's about love.

And women know that. But we all need love and respect equally. But the scriptures revealing this, plus the University of Washington studied 2,000 couples for 20 years.

And they said, we now know the two key ingredients for successful marriages, love and respect. And Dr. John Gottman wrote a book, why Marriages Succeed or Fail. And that's where he makes that statement. And he's very gender specific.

So I then went out trying to, you know, disarm the mantra of, you know, he doesn't deserve it, he doesn't earn it. I said, could this empower you? If you simply said, I'm not trying to diss you right now. I'm not trying to dishonor you.

But right now, can you explain to me how you came across so unloving here? Because you've hurt me, and we need to talk about that.

But I don't want you to interpret me as using this topic as an opportunity to send you a message that I can't stand who you are as a human being. I need you. You have a strength that I need. We need to talk about this.

I said to the ladies, that will empower you and every man will soften, turn to you, and if you're not a Baptist, say, have you been drinking?

I love it. That's great. You know, it's funny, my very first written assignment I did as I was graduating was about marriage.

And I was investigating the same around the same topic. I think I did it from the Colossians version.

And I remember writing an article about, what does it mean to submit because that word submit, I knew was a touchy point like you talked about.

Slightly. Slightly, yeah.

And one of the very first couples I remember counseling in marriage, the wife said to me as we're going over the service, like, I am not going to repeat those words. I obey because dogs obey. I am not going to obey. And I remember I had written this article about what does it mean to submit.

And going into the history like you kind of did of, you know, I studied from the historical part of men and women in that time frame in the mid, in the Middle east and how what Paul was really doing was elevating women to a level equal to her husband by saying, you know, husbands, honor your wives as Christ loved his church. And it's like. And so it's like all of a sudden they were not second class citizens, but they were partners in this marriage.

And I said, he's elevating the role of women alongside her husband.

And it totally transformed a little bit her thinking as not like Paul's this male chauvinist, but he really is honoring this beautiful relationship between husband and wife.

Well, it's interesting because people ask that question all the time about mutual submission versus the hupo tasso that is specifically calling wives to submit to the husband. That ephesians passage, Ephesians 5:21, says, Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Okay, so there you see mutual submission, it's clear.

Out of reverence for Christ, he goes vertical. But that begins that section. Then he says, wives, submit your husbands. And then he transitions, husbands, love your wives. So there's the outline.

Wives submit, husbands love. But then he concludes, husbands, love your wives and wives respect your husbands. Wait a minute. Where did the word respect, why didn't he say submit?

Right, okay, Peter does the same thing. First Peter, three wives, submit to your husbands. There's submit.

Even if any of them are disobedient to the Word, they can be won without a word by your. And he says respectful behavior. You would think he would say submissive behavior, right?

See, so then I say to people, I've been teaching this for a long time. In my opinion, both Paul and Peter believe this.

That I submit to Sarah, my wife, in this application by meeting her need to feel loved for who she is, especially during a conflict. That's how I submit. Submit to one other reverence of Christ. I submit to Sarah by loving her.

Right.

How does Sarah submit to me?

By meeting my need to feel respected for who I am as a human being created in the image of God, apart from my performance that she has a respectful attitude as she is confronting things that are unloving and not respectable. This is what unconditional positive regard is in the psychological arena. Unconditional positive regard toward the human spirit of the other person.

Well, Keith, as I've espoused that women have said that that's proactive, that's positive. That's meeting a need that he has. That's not me letting go of something I said.

No, I mean, if he's disobedient of the word, then yeah, he's not listening to what you've been saying. So there's where you gotta ultimately trust that God's gonna give you favor. But on the day in and day out thing, it's proactive.

I submit to Sarah to meet her need to feel love for who she is. When I'm not happy, that's a call for me to submit. And Sarah submits to my need to feel respected for who I am when.

When she's confronting issues that she finds hurtful. And that has revolutionized many marriages because it makes it positive.

And even secular people who don't like the word submit, I say I have to believe if you've got a healthy relationship, you wouldn't argue against the importance of deferring to the other person. That's the nature of what we do. Right. And so you defer in a way that first is adnitudinal. It's not even talking about what the decision may be.

That's a secondary issue. If you start with the right attitude, you can debate all day long and still have a healthy relationship. Does that make sense, Keith?

It does. It does.

I want to dig in that a little bit more because I want to talk about the common communication mistakes that happen when couples are dealing with conflict. What makes it worse and how do we resolve it?

Well, I take the position based on First Corinthians 7, verses 33 and 34 in the Christian marriage, where Paul says, the husband is concerned about how to please his wife and the wife is concerned about how to please her husband. I'm writing a book called the Win Win marriage based on First Corinthians 7, which is about marriage. And Paul goes back and forth. There's.

It's constant mutuality. The constant. It's just. It's just beautiful. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Okay.

In this verse 33 and 34, the husband is concerned about how to please his wife. The wife is concerned about how to please her husband.

At the end of the day, I see that as basic goodwill, that he doesn't get up early in the morning to storyboard ways to annoy her or show her he's not concerned or he doesn't want to please her, nor does she. But at the end of the day, we feel the other doesn't necessarily care. We feel that they are not trying to please us.

We feel at times we don't matter to them, particularly because we keep appealing to them in little areas we know overall, maybe they have basic goodwill, but we keep asking them not to do X, Y, Z, because when they've stopped doing that negative thing, it just makes me happy. And in my opinion, that's not too difficult to change.

But you marry somebody and then you're married for 30 years, and you go through this again and again. There's a momentary change, but then they revert back to the way they had been. And you come to a point where you think, I don't think you care.

I don't think I matter to you. And we draw the conclusion that.

That this person, even though they have basic goodwill, I don't think they really deeply care about things that I care about deeply, that I don't really matter to them about issues that really matter to me because I keep asking them to stop this. So then we become convinced that this person, for whatever reason, doesn't want to show me concern or doesn't want to please me.

So now we come to a point. Is it a crisis of marriage or is it a crisis of faith? Am I going to believe what the word of God is teaching here and reframe this?

Or am I going to buy into my experience and conclude, you know what? I think I may have married Hitler's distant cousin. So that's a faith issue. And I challenge people. And I've been doing this long enough now.

I said we just need to pause here.

If you've made the case against your spouse because of the way you've interpreted all these things, then what I said really puts you on the defensive, because you've got a story to tell, and you've been telling it, and you've been telling for 25 years that you're not trying to be right. You just know that you are right and your spouse is the problem in this relationship. And now I'm suggesting that maybe they have far more goodwill.

Maybe they didn't really intend to do what you thought. Maybe this is an issue of a male and female difference.

For instance, in conflict, 85% of those who withdraw in Stonewall is the Male, because physiologically, during conflict, his. His heartbeats get to 99 beats per minute. That's warrior mode.

So in our world, Keith, if you and our best buddies, we got in a heated moment, we'll eventually say drop and forget it. And we'll distance ourselves from each other because the relationship is far more important than the stupid issue we're fighting about. That's honor.

And so in these relationships, maritally, a husband most often at a certain point just goes quiet and withdraws. In the woman's world, that is the epitome of being unloving and hostile.

The University of Washington asked the women in now, in that love lavatory, when your husband withdraws like this, and that's where that stat came from. 85%, What do you feel? The women responded so consistently, they made a descriptor called act of hostility. It feels like an act of hostility.

He hates me. He doesn't love me. And yet I know and you know that when men do that, they don't want this thing to escalate out of control. They're.

They're trying to do what they think is the right and righteous thing. They're not trying to be unloving. They would die for this woman if. If. If she doesn't kill him first, right? So.

So he, in his mind, is doing the loving and honorable thing on the heels of what he may be feeling is disrespectful in the first place. And so now suddenly he's labeled as unloving. So if I say to a woman, let's reframe this, could he be an honorable man? He's not trying to be unloving.

He is concerned to please you. He's not trying to make you unhappy. He's going quiet to protect this thing from getting out of control because he is lethal.

Whereas a woman looks like she's out of control, but her heartbeats were normal. This is what's so interesting.

He looks stoic and like he's under control, but he's flooded emotionally, so he has to disengage to calm down so that he can have a rational decision.

Okay, so now if you've lived with a man for 30 years who's been withdrawing and you're convinced he's hostile, and now I've just said to you, what if he's an honorable man seeking to do the loving thing?

He is concerned to please you, and he's not even anywhere close to trying to be unloving, but you've labeled him unloving because as a woman, as A pink worldview person, his blue choice to you is completely unacceptable and therefore you're right. But what if you're not right?

What if he's a good hearted man and what if he next time in a conflict said, I know you're shutting down because you're an honorable man. And let's just take a 15 minute break here and can we come back for 15 minutes, not 15 hours and address one issue?

And this is the issue I want to address. And I'm not going to try to diss you in this because that's not my motive here.

I'm feeling a little insecure and threatened by this and I just want reassurance and I kind of want to resolve this issue. I want to have a conversation that's mutually honorable and then we can shut it off at 15 minutes and maybe resume it tomorrow.

Kevin, what do you predict every man's going to do in response to that?

Well, I think most men would appreciate the fact that their wife has shown them respect. Going back to what we talked about earlier.

Yeah, I mean that's an honorable way of saying it. At the same time, did she compromise the truth that she was feeling? No, she was being very upfront and honest.

But I challenge people, hey, if you've been right, so to speak, for 30 years and suddenly you realize what I just said could be true. And here's what I say to women. Do you have sons who are married?

If you do, I'm assuming you want that sweet daughter in law of yours not to conclude that your boy is hostile and unloving when he is being labeled and she goes on social media just blasting him away. And you know, that's not the heart of your son. Does this make sense?

It does. I like that.

And I think that's so helpful and I'm glad we got this on record because I think so many people don't understand that dynamics and they misinterpret it from both sides.

Correct.

And I think we that just escalates most controversy, most conflict, and we never get beyond our feelings to get to what's really at heart here.

They had linguists, they had medical professionals there, they had psychologists, researchers, and they knew it wasn't politically correct to say in heated conflict in these marriages, women criticize, complain, that's their natural. They just do that. Right. And so, but I know and you know from all the research on every chart, women are the caregivers. Women care.

They can't not care. I say to a guy, if you have a heart attack and you may be dying, you'll be on a hundred prayer teams across this country.

And they are women praying for you. And they can't not pray for you.

Particularly if your wife's an invalid in a wheelchair and you've got a special needs child and now you, you're incapacitated. They can't not care about this. They just start praying about this and they share this. They can't not do this.

Okay, so the question is, when she criticizes and complains, you say to a man, why is she doing that? Because she's using this topic as another opportunity to send me a message that she has contempt for who I am as a human being. Really? Yeah.

Well, what if she confronts and criticizes because she cares? What if the whole motivation is care? I know no one else talks to you this way. I get it. No one talks to you the way she talks to you.

But the question is, is she a virtuous woman, caring woman, you know she is. And most men will say, yeah, I know that in the Broad Brisbane, but whatever. There's something about me that she doesn't like. Well, let's just stop.

Could she be saying these things because she cares, she confronts because she cares, or is it because she wants to show you contempt?

And this is where both sides of this issue, a woman has to ask herself, is it an act of hostility when he withdraws or an act of honor when he withdraws? And a man has to ask, when she confronts me, is it an act of care or is it an act of contempt? And this is where some men would land.

No, she's full of contempt, and she's never seen me as an honorable man. This woman has serious issues. And. That's right. I'm gonna chime in. As a wife, he is not an honorable man. He's filled with hate. I care deeply.

And he misreads everything I do. So we can take that quadrant and defend ourselves, or we can come to a point where we say, you know what? I need to rethink this.

And I have to then decide whether I want to make an adjustment or I wanna hang on to the earlier interpretation, or just maybe, maybe I wasn't so stupid when I selected this person to live with the rest of my life, and that that person that I saw then is still there, but through my crazy cycle moments, they've shut down on me. And they are reacting negatively, more out of fear and insecurity, not out of ill will.

Now, that was. That was podcast gold. Thank you for that. I want to get into your new book, because I. I'm sure that's. There's a lot of wealth and wisdom there, too.

So tell us about what inspired you to write the light bulb moments in marriage and how does it build on your previous work? Love and respect.

Yes. Over the years, Keith, women and men have written me, we had a light bulb moment as a result of breathing love and respect.

There are some who had a light bulb moment and listening just what we said. There were guys on, you know, they heard the crazy act, without love, she reacts without respect, without respect, he reacts without love.

And it just starts spinning. And I say, when you see the spirit of your spouse deflate, you probably just stepped on their air hose, right?

She needs love like she needs air to breathe. He needs respect like he needs air to breathe. And it's unconditional love. It's unconditional respect.

Not endorsing any evil behavior, but confronting it in a loving, respectful way. You cannot be disrespectful and unloving to motivate another person to be loving and respectful. You can't use unholy means to achieve worthy ends.

So given that people say, wow, that's exactly.

I've had guys say to me, you just said, In 30 seconds, 30 years of my marriage, you put a voice and vocabulary to everything I've been feeling but didn't know how to say. That's that light bulb moment. Well, over the years, there are a whole plethora of issues that we've addressed.

And people said we had a light bulb moment. It changed just in. Just that quickly. We pivoted in our relationship, and it is just that much.

And I think sometimes one of the points I make is, you don't need more effort. Some of you are trying every day, and this is why you're so exhausted.

But you keep trying through your upbringing, grid, your spiritual gifts grid, your gender grid, your temperament grid. But you're not stepping back long enough to. Jesus said in Matthew 19:4. Have you not read, I made them.

He who made them from the beginning made them male and female. And that though we're equal, we're not identical. And we've been trying based on what we think is the right thing to do, but we need to step back.

Like I just said, he's doing the honorable thing. When he goes quiet, he's not trying to do the hostile thing. She's doing the caring thing. When she confronts.

She's not trying to do the contemptuous thing. Doesn't even think about disrespect. Many women say, I have no idea what he's talking about when he says, I'm disrespecting him.

And that's an innocent comment. So people have written me saying it changed our marriage.

And so I put together 12 of the light bulb moments that people have written to me about that just changed their life. And it's not a matter of needing more effort. It's a matter of needing more light.

And the question is, do we want that insight or do we want to hold on to our correct interpretation of this, that the whole problem is my spouse? And it may be. But if your spouse has basic goodwill as you do, then could it pivot just that quickly in a favorable way?

And these 12 chapters all deal with a light bulb moment that people have written to me and said, here's what happened and here's how quickly it changed.

And we want people to know about this book because I think it'll inspire them and it will give them the skill and knowledge to influence the spirit of their spouse. And the question on the table is, do they really want to do that? I've had people say to me, I have a story to tell about my bad marriage.

And I get more empathy from people who listen to me than I get in my marriage. And so, and I've said, they said to me secretly, I really don't want my marriage to be better.

I just want to keep telling people that I really want it better. But my spouse is unresponsive to me.

And because I get more energy and empathy from people feeling sorry for me than from really actively doing something that's going to influence the spirit of my spouse in the way that Christ calls me to do. And I, I would never, Keith, have predicted that. But I've heard this many times in counseling sessions. And I said, really? Well, because they, they.

They came to a point of confidence in me and made that as the confession. And then once they made that confession, they realized, you know, that's. That's probably not the best thing to do.

And then I said, okay, well, then let's. Let's move forward so that you don't feel like somehow you're being taken advantage of, that you're losing power.

What if you could actually energize, influence and motivate your spouse with just a little insight that would just blow you away. Are you open to that?

I love It. So Your book highlights 12 biblical principles. How did you choose those specific principles? Or do you just go 12 because of the 12 tribes?

Yeah, exactly. No, it's arbitrary. I mean, it's arbitrary. I could have had the Baker's dozen of 13. I could have had 11, you know, but. So there's more than 12. But it.

It. I realized that, like one of the principles that we have espoused over the years is my response is my responsibility.

Sarah doesn't cause me to be the way I am. She reveals the way I am. Therefore, if my response is unloving, it reveals an unresolved issue within me that I can't justify or blame on Sarah.

But I'm going to do everything in my power to justify myself and blame Sarah. But that principle has been one that people have said they have it on their refrigerator. My response is my responsibility.

It's been part of their parenting. It's really a powerful thing. Now that one is a little bit more intimidating.

But we talk about identity, that our identity should be God given, not spouse driven. That another chapter, seeing Jesus beyond the shoulder of my spouse. And as you did the study in Colossians, you saw Paul said, we do what we do.

As to the Lord, as to the Lord, as to the Lord. The person in front of you is irrelevant in that sense.

This is about touching the heart of Christ, that we can do marriage God's way, even if our spouse doesn't respond.

That's a light bulb moment that people never thought about that you can touch the heart of Christ, you can please Christ even if your spouse isn't responding to you. You can do your part of the equation. You can be a loving man who loves Christ and reverences Christ, even if your wife is committing adultery.

And that's like a boom. And it's. And people have said to me, they weren't divorcing. That wasn't an option.

They had just concluded that they'd be miserable the rest of their lives.

But as a result of that idea that touching the heart of Christ beyond the shoulder of their spouse and reinvigorated them every day, now they got up knowing that what I did mattered to Christ. What I did touched his heart. And they wrote me and said, change my life. So it's that kind of thing.

But the question is, do we want to hear that kind of message given the possibility that the spouse never changes? Well, that I think, is why we come back to the fact that sometimes this is not a marital problem, it's a spiritual problem. It's a faith problem.

I don't know why the cards were dealt to you the way they were in your marriage. I do know this. Nothing is wasted if you pay attention to what I said in chapter two. So it's that kind of thing.

Also hearing, well done, good and faithful servant, I believe that many Christians are going to hear, well done, good and faithful servant. And you know as well as I do, like In Ephesians, chapters 1, 2, 3 is doctrine, 4, 5 and 6 is application.

Chapters 1 and 2 of Colossians is doctrine, 3 and 4 is application. And Paul swings from doctor to application, always beginning with husband, wife. Why?

Because it reflects the image of God according to Genesis and it reflects the Christ Church relationship according to the Apostle Paul. This is no small deal. This is big and this is where the Lord is watching. Because it's not dealing with spiritual giftedness.

It's not dealing with talent, not dealing with symmetry, beauty, celebrity. It has everything to do with are you doing this out of love and reverence for me? Are you doing this out of trust and obedience toward me?

And if so, I believe that's going to be one of those areas that ranks high when we stand before Christ and he's going to look at her and say, well done, good and faithful servant. I saw you put on a respectful attitude, address things respectfully as unto me, your husband didn't receive it, but well done.

And that's why I say, do we really believe it's going down this way? Do we really believe? Because in some ways it may be that we really don't. Because behavior reveals belief in all of your work.

I'm curious. I know this is every couple is different, but do you see that one light bulb moment couples tend to struggle with the most? And if so, why.

Not struggling necessarily with a light bulb moment? But I think the main thing that I see is that there's just honest misunderstanding. There's just honest misunderstanding. There isn't that ill will.

And this is why the first Corinthians 7, 33 and 34, the husband is concerned to please his wife and the wife concerned to please her husband.

That we have to come to a point where we live by the holy word, not by Hollywood, and that we make a decision to trust that my spouse has basic good will. Paul penned Romans, the great treatise on total human depravity.

He understood sin, he understood selfishness, but he didn't say to the Corinthians, the reason you got these marital difficulties is you're sinful and selfish. Get over it. Stop It. No, he says, your spouse has basic concern to please you. I mean, this is the Apostle Paul. And so we have to come to a point.

Unless there's clear immorality, unless there's really a thus saith the Lord in Scripture that our spouse is violating, then almost every conflict in marriage is due to what I call clashing preferences in the gray area. And I have a chapter on that. Neither are wrong, just different shades of right.

My position may be better than Sarah's, but that just makes her position less better. It doesn't make it bad. And we have clunky language that we're not able to describe that.

But all of us come to a point where we're seeking, you know, the greater good, the better way, the best option. But that doesn't mean that because Sarah has the best option, that. That my option is horrible. No, it just means it's second best.

But we don't have language in English communication to use relativistic terms. Instead, we just judge the other person is wrong because they're disagreeing with me and because I really am convinced I'm right.

So it's just logical. Emerson. I'm normal, therefore they're abnormal. I'm right, therefore they're wrong.

And that just escalates it because we put our spouse on the defensive, they feel attacked, and. And now we're on the crazy cycle. So my position has been we've got to step back and ask, is there honest misunderstanding here?

And if there's honest misunderstanding on these clashing preference areas, I talk about harmonization, that we are same team, same goals, different plays. And I talk about 27 common goals that Christians have, husbands and wives, but we don't always get to those goals through the same path.

And that's where the arguments ensue. And I talk about how to resolve those differences of opinion.

But much of the book then, is dealing with coming to a point of mutual understanding and being able to negotiate these situations in a way that actually brings about win, win. And that we find, wow, iron sharpens iron, so one brother sharpens another. And it ends up being a.

What I call the pink and blue view, blends together into the purple view, which is the color of royalty, the color of God, that we end up finding a third option, a creative alternative, as a result of our individual positions. And this is what the Lord intended by oneness. He calls us to be one.

But many couples have said to me, we just keep arguing about which one and that I'm the right one. Instead of seeing this way of moving forward, finding win win, mutual agreement and both saying, that works for me. That works for me.

I love this.

And I, I'm curious, as you think about kind of the way the world is today, why is understanding God's design for marriage so crucial for today's world?

Well, we have to ask ourselves, is there a heavenly Father there and has he spoken? Jesus himself said, it is written. He countered, the devil. It is written. It is written. It is written. Sola scriptura. I mean Luther, sola scriptura.

I mean it is scripture alone for faith and practice. And coming to a point where I believe that God has spoken and that this is his game plan. This is his game plan for believers.

I was going to write on a book for pre married couples, right? But I could only find basically two main points. Marry in the Lord, 1 Corinthians 7. At the end of that, marry in the Lord.

I mean you marry a fellow believer and refrain from fornication. That's what I said. I'm not going to sell a whole lot of books that way, right?

So, right as I, but I, I wrote, well, Lord, then why have you not said very much to the premarried? And then I had unpacked every verse in the Old and New Testament on marriage that applied to the Christ follower post resurrection, post Pentecost.

So I tried to rightly divide the word of truth because they're Old Testament passages that relate to the nation Israel.

But what is it that the New Testament in particular is saying and what is the Old Testament saying that the apostles and Christ himself would have endorsed as applicable to the Christ following community? And so there are six things I say to a wife on how you spell respect your husband based on what the scripture's saying.

Six things to the husband on how to love his wife. Like C O U P L E is the acronym couple. Closeness, openness, understanding, peacemaking, loyalty and esteem. Say those again.

Men are called to be close to their wife, to be open with their wife, to understand their wife, to be at peace with their wife, to be loyal to their wife, to esteem their wife. And all of those are rooted in salient scriptures. Two husbands toward their wives.

And so I went about doing that and then as I did that, as I was praying about the premarit Lord, what, why the absence of, you know, information? Because I want the pre married to know the game plan for the married. If they understand the game plan, they'll be okay, here's the plan.

Here's husbands, if you can understand what it means to be Close to your pre married guys. Understand what it means to be close to your wife, open with your wife, understanding, et cetera.

You're going to be okay if she's got goodwill, she can't not respond to that. She wants to respond to that. It energizes. You gotta be married to one Bad dudas for her not to respond to that. Right.

So one of the things that we have said over the years is that this is the game plan. And all of us are going to have to come to a point. Where do I believe our heavenly fathers revealed this?

And will I align myself with this, or will I go with Hollywood rather than the holy word? And that's one of the challenges I extend in the book.

Sometimes we come to a crossroads where we have to make a decision that I'm going to act based on what scripture is saying because I trust my heavenly father's heart, or I'm going to listen to voices out there that could end up really misleading me, particularly if we have.

And I don't want to put down divorced people per se, but if you've got friends in your life who have walked out on their spouse, they're not going to promote a standard of righteousness higher than the one they've lived. People just don't do that because they don't want to be hypocritical.

And so you have to make sure you're understanding who's influencing you and influencing your thinking. And you also have to understand, at the end of the day, we seek people out that are going to tell us what we want to hear.

So it's not even necessarily they're going to mislead us. It's that we are going to go to them in order for them to tell us what we want to hear.

There are nuances to this that I've learned over the years, but given that a person really wants this marriage to go, then love and respect unpacks what I believe is the game plan. And if you just align with that, everything's going to be okay.

I love it. I'm going to ask you my other favorite question. What do you want your legacy to be?

Well, the joke is on. On my tombstone. I want it to be written, I told you I was sick.

That was going to be mine, too.

Exactly. We get no respect. They didn't believe us. Yeah, well, well, so there, you know, you know, I mean, I, that's a good question.

I, I To me, it's to the grandchildren, hopefully that they will see Mimi and Poppy. That's what they call us faithful, our own sons and daughters. Faithful, faithful followers of Christ, that we were faithful to the end.

I mean, I think the older we get, you know, the more you realize, I mean, Solomon, the wisest of wisest men, the seeds of disobedience were early in his life that he didn't deal with. He had a lot of things that were virtuous, but he was not faithful to the end. And, you know, maybe the legacy was, Poppy was faithful to the end.

That's my aim right now. And. And never be presumptuous. Take heed he who thinks he stands, lest he fall.

And so that's been deep in my heart to make sure that we are faithful followers to the end.

I love it. So we have something new on the podcast and it's a surprise question. Pick a number between 1 and 10 for your surprise question.

7.

7. What would be your best day ever?

What would be or what has been would be? Well, I mean, the best five seconds after I die in a sin, to be absent from the bodies, to be present with the Lord.

So, I mean, from a biblical standpoint, that's going to be the best day ever. I mean, that's truly. But what would be my best day ever?

You know, I think the apostle John said, there's no greater joy than to know that our children are walking in the truth. And though he was referring to the Christ follower, he took that from, you know, a parenting perspective. And I think there's a richness there.

And I think, you know, to know that my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, that the legacy continued on and that some of the things I'm writing right now, let's say I wrote a book called the Four Wills of God. There are four passages in the New Testament that say this is the will of God and identifies it with a behavior. It's unique. Those four are unique.

And I wrote the book four Wills of God in the back of my heart. I keep thinking I look forward as my grandchildren get older, that they come to me. Poppy, this is life changing.

So that kind of thing would be, I think, a pure joy to me.

That's great. Where can people find you? Where can they find your book, love and respect in your new book?

Well, loveandrespect.com L O V E A N D R A S P e c t.com and we have free information there on the website and I would love for people to check that out. And certainly light bulb moments. I would love for them to find out these aha, eureka moments and they can find this anywhere where books are sold.

It's HarperCollins is the publisher. It's made available around the world. So I would love for people to read this.

And some people think, well, isn't that just the same as love and respect? And the people who have gotten into this said when I picked it up, I thought it was just kind of rehashing Love and respect.

Emerson, I'm blown away by what you've done here. Well, that's exactly right. I've gone way deeper on issues that I didn't even touch in Love and Respect book.

So I'm all I can say is I hope people trust me, because one of the pushbacks is I was going to get around to getting that book, but I just figured it'd be a rehash of love and respect. And then I got it and I'm thinking, whoa, that's not the case at all. So all I can do is ask people to trust me on that point.

Well, thank you so much, Emerson. What a powerful and practical conversation. Relationships don't thrive by accident. They grow through intentional love, respect, and understanding.

If today's episode encouraged you, be sure to subscribe. Share it with someone you could benefit and leave a review if it helps to continue to reach people who are seeking stronger, healthier relationships.

And if you want to go deeper, check out Emerson's Love and Respect book and his online marriage and parenting courses. We've included those links in the show notes. Remember, every conversation is an opportunity to build a bridge.

Until next time, keep building bridges in your home, in your relationships, and in your marriage. Until next time.

Thank you so much. Amen.