Love & Respect - Review

Love and Respect

By: Dr. Emerson Eggerichs

Published: September 7th 2004 by Thomas Nelson Publishers (first published 2004)

336 pages

Genre: Non-fiction, Marriage, Christian

Source: Borrowed from my friend, Kay

( Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository )

Goodreads 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.""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, and biblically.

A Message That Works Based on over three decades of counseling, as well as scientific and biblical research, Dr. Emerson Eggerichs and his wife, Sarah, have already taken the "Love and Respect "message across America and are changing the way couples talk to, think about, and treat each other. What do you want for your marriage? Want some peace? Want to feel close? Want to feel valued? Want to experience marriage the way God intended? Then why not try some Love and Respect.

I have one friend who consistently reads any "self-help" book I recommend to her. She'll occasionally read fiction books that I recommend, but mostly she doesn't have a lot of time to read and so when she does, she makes it a book that's going to help her improve herself. As a result, if there's ever a time where she recommends a book to me, I'm all over it. And that's the case with Love & Respect.

As soon as she was finished with it, she passed it on to me. And I finished it in two days. Love & Respect, as broken down by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, helped me to look at the relationship of husband and wife from the scriptural standpoint of Ephesian 5:22-33 in a whole new way. For me, Dr. Eggerichs' explanation was surprising and obvious all at the same time. My friend and I had commented before about how in this very passage God commands the husband to love his wife and the wife to respect her husband because that's what each sex struggles with the most. Women typically respond emotionally--love--whereas men need respect. While feeling like an idiot for not seeing the forest for the trees, Dr. Eggerichs really breaks down these two concepts in a way that's easy to understand and easy to put into action.

I truly enjoyed this book. It was a fast read for me and had an easy to understand message that I can see myself putting into practice in my everyday life. I'd easily give this book 4 stars. At the same time, I thought I'd take this opportunity to let you hear from a reader who is more enthusiastic about it's affect on her life. Even though I've enjoyed the book and gotten a lot out of it, she's enjoyed it and gotten even more out of it than I have. So without further ado, here's a mini-review/guest post from my friend, Kay.

This book was given to me by my mother and sat at the bottom of a stack of overdue need to dos. I decided to read it at a time when I felt my marriage was going through a less-than-strong moment. I had tried so many other ways to “fix” my marriage and thought, what’s one more book gonna do? I was not prepared for what I was about to read.

I threw up so many walls in the beginning because well, first of all it’s written by a man. And secondly, because he was stepping all over my feet. But I decided to finish the book so it wouldn’t be added back to my long list of to dos. And the end result was life changing.

The author speaks from God’s word and helped me realize that I can only control my thoughts, my actions, my rebuttals. No matter how my husband may act about something; even if it is unloving, it is in my control to react in a kind, loving and respectful way. It has been a very hard thing for me to do--show respect when I feel anything but love. And I am still working on it every day. But I can testify to this, the power you feel and the results you will see from showing your husband respect, outweigh any “win” over any argument.

“The one who is the most mature, will start the process first”.

Have you read Love & Respect? What did you think? Let me know!