Some of you may remember that a couple of months ago I wrote a 3 part blog-post series called Love & Respect. The series was based on the book by Emerson Eggerichs, Love & Respect. I wanted to talk a bit about this book today because I will be leading an F3 class on this book starting here in a couple of weeks. In this book, Eggerichs talks about a concept familiar to everybody, unconditional love, but he also talks about a concept that many are not familiar with, unconditional respect.
Many people don’t realize just how important that second part is. I find his book particularly interesting because although it is now fashionable in the field of counseling/psychology to downplay the differences between the sexes in an attempt to be politically correct, Eggerich’s does the exact opposite and writes an entire book based on some of those differences. The main difference he writes about is that as a general rule, women value love more than respect and men value respect more than love. In other words, if women had to choose between her husband loving her or respecting her, more women would choose love. Conversely, if men had to choose between their wife loving him or respecting him, he would choose respect. Eggerich’s has found this to be the case with most, although not all, couples. What becomes extremely damaging to marriages is when one partner withholds the thing that the other partner needs most. When men feel disrespected by their wives, some respond by withholding love and affection. When women feel they unloved by their husbands, some respond by acting disrespectful toward their husbands. It’s a vicious cycle which has led to the destruction of too many marriages. Dr. Eggerich’s book provides instructions on how to get off of this “crazy cycle.” Another excellent touch to the book that I especially love as a Christian counselor is that the entire book is backed up by scripture at different points in the margins of the page.
I would welcome anyone who is interested in bettering their marriage to attend the class and at least just see what it’s about. Even if your marriage is strong, I can’t imagine a couple working through this book and not learning a thing or two about each other and their relationship. I hope to see many people there and I look forward to walking through the book with them and getting a refresher course on the book myself!

In His service,

Jarvis