The secret to a successful marriage
Conflict between a husband and wife can be frustrating for both if they have not discovered one of the greatest secrets in dealing with conflict in a marriage relationship.
John Gray’s wildly popular book, ‘Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus,’ postulates that the reason for relationship conflicts is that each gender is accustomed to its own set of emotional balances, cultures, and values, or, metaphorically speaking, live on different planets.
Dr. Emerson Eggerichs in his book Love & Respect says cracking the communication code between husband and wife involves understanding one thing: that unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her.
It’s the secret to marriage that every couple seeks, and yet few couples ever find. While both men and women deserve both love and respect, in the midst of conflict, the driving need for a woman is love and the driving need for a man is respect. When either of these needs isn’t met, things get crazy.
Wives are made to love, want to love, and expect love. On the other hand husbands are made to be respected, want respect, and expect respect. When a husband feels disrespected, it is especially hard to love his wife. When a wife feels unloved, it is especially hard to respect her husband.
Often, both tend to focus on their own need and simply overlook the needs of the other person.
The thing is no husband feels affection toward a wife who appears to have contempt for who he is as a human being. The key to creating fond feelings of love in a husband toward his wife is through showing him unconditional respect.
Craziness happens when they keep doing the same things over and over with the same ill effect. For example, if the wife says, “I’m not going to respect him because he doesn’t love me,” and the husband on the other hand says, “I’ll not show her love because she does not respect me.”
Wives need to know that when men hear negative criticism, it doesn’t take them long to start interpreting that as contempt for who they are as men.
When he honors her as first in importance and she respects him as first among equals, their marriage works. The typical wife also fails to realize that her self-image often rests on what she believes her husband thinks of her.
While many wives do not intend to be disrespectful, they appear that way to their husbands, and their husbands take refuge in stonewalling them.
Right or wrong, men interpret their world through the respect grid, and a wife’s softened tone and facial expressions can do more for her marriage than she can imagine. Whether it’s a husband or a wife who ‘doesn’t get it’, the answer is the same: each often doesn’t see the obvious. No matter how desperate or hopeless a marriage may seem, if husband and wife both have basic goodwill in their hearts, they can stop the Crazy Cycle.
Forgiving is the direct opposite of judging. Nothing is easier than judging, nothing is harder than forgiving, and nothing can reap more blessings. Women confront to connect. The typical response from a man, however, is that he thinks his wife is confronting to control.