Love and Respect: What Women and Men Need

Love and Respect, a book by Dr. Emerson E. Eggerichs (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004), is not just for married couples but relates to all men and women who are either friends, couples, engaged, co-workers, or any other situation where men and women are thrown together. That would just about be...everywhere. These same principles are found in the Bible in Ephesians 5:22-33, which contain instructions for husbands and wives, but they also apply to any situation or any place where men and women are together.

Dr. Eggerichs once said the old Beatles song; "All You Need Is Love" is insufficient for marriages today. Love is necessary yes, particularly for the woman, but with divorce rates hovering around 50%, much more than love is needed. Love may have drawn you together, but by itself, it does not guarantee you'll stay together. Here's why. Women and wives and men and husbands have differing needs and to show what one sex thinks is important to the other is to completely miss the target. Women are more fulfilled by love which makes the respect their man, while men feel loved when they are respected. When one sex esteems one thing and the other sex esteems something else, they tend to think what that person needs is what the other needs. But it does not work this way. Its like men are the engine and women are the cooling system in a car. You wouldn't pour oil in the radiator anymore than you would put water in where the oil goes. The car might run for a little, but eventually, the cooling system and the engine would both overheat.

Don't think that men don't need love and that women don't need respect; they do. But just like an engine, the major component of what makes a woman tick and what makes a man tick are not one and the same. And understanding this will not only make for a better performing marriage, it will keep it from breaking down. The point is, sometimes no one knows the breakdown is coming until it is too late, and the damage is done. No one wants to reach a point of no return.

Dr Eggerichs puts it this way, saying "This Love and Respect message is about how the wife and all women can fulfill their need to be loved by giving her husband or men what they need -- respect. And the husband or all men can fulfill their need to be respected by giving his wife or all women what they need -- love. Does this always work? No. But if one is married to a person of good will, I would bet the farm that it would work!" This same concept is effective when men and women have to work together. For men, this doesn't mean that you bring flowers to your women co-workers or that women show more respect for men than women at work. It does mean that your actions reflect genuine love and respect for each other as men and women and to treat each other with dignity and respect. Love and respect are both verbs; it's what you do. It is not only in words, although they can convey this, but in how you treat members of the opposite sex. If you want to strengthen your marriage or relationship, read this book!