By Elisa | Leave A Comment
If you can get your husband to read his half of this book while you read yours, it just might revolutionize your marriage. My husband and I read it together and I’d like to tell you the impression made on me as a woman and a wife.
The purpose of the book, I think, is to attempt to restore to the minds of modern men and women some of what used to be common sense in relating to one another. Namely, that men and women have vastly different needs and when a woman can focus on giving her husband what he needs (respect), instead of giving him what she wants to receive from him (love) and vise-versa, then both will find themselves fulfilled and happy.
One of the most eye-opening things for me was to realize that my husband doesn’t need assurance of my love for him nearly as much as he needs assurance of my respect for and honor of him. That opened up a whole new world to me. My tendency is to be very conscientious of regularly affirming my love for him, particularly during disagreements. But the thought of affirming my respect for him was totally new to me.
This is so common-sense. Obviously it’s best to fulfill your spouse’s need, not give them what you want from them yourself. It’s not something that’s often talked about in society today– the idea of finding self-fulfillment in fulfilling the needs of others. So the questions are:
- What are my husband’s basic “man-needs”?
- How, practically speaking, do I fulfill them?
Dr. Eggerichs answers this question through stories, examples and, most importantly, Scripture. He uses a very visual approach through diagrams and charts– very helpful to me, since I tend to forget a thing as soon as I hear it, unless there are pictures. (Sad, but true.) When you see his explanation of “The Crazy Cycle”, you’ll probably realize you’ve been there before (or might be there right now!).
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to any couple interested in learning how to have a joyful and mutually beneficial marriage relationship.
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Elisa reads, writes, crafts, brags about her babies and occasionally waxes eloquent about life and other important things at her blog, Herb of Grace.
ABOUT Elisa
I am a work-at-home-mom with two babies; a six-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy. I stay very bus{read more}
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This book made a difference in my life too! I also had never thought about how I might seem disrespectful to my husband and the damage that I was doing.
My husband doesn’t really like to read books so I actually read the chapters aloud for him….without stopping to make comments. It would have done more damage than good to make comments like “see, I have been trying to tell you this for a long time” or “gee, like you are going to change your ways now”. If you decide to read aloud, DO NOT make comments. Just read and let him absorb the info.
Be blessed!
Thanks for your post on this. I have been wondering for a few years whether or not to get it. It sounds great.
Christie, I love the idea of reading this aloud! But you’re right, comments could derail things
Lori, I’ll say it again, I HIGHLY recommend it. I recently started reading their second book on communication– check that one out, too!
I just read this book this past summer and it was so helpful. The best part to me was the practical definitions of what respect looks like. I’ve always agreed in principle that I should respect my husband, but not known what that looks like in day to day activity.
When I’m not trying to love my kids and respect my husband, or perhaps while I’m doing that, I’m also blogging about Jesus in my everyday at: http://burningbushes.org/
Nichole, I agree about the practical help. It’s funny to read about small things that never would have occurred to me, that might be so important to him.