Book Review: Love & Respect
February 14, 2010 by Brian Smith
LOVE & RESPECT, The Love She Most Desires, The Respect He Desperately Needs
Dr. Emerson Eggerichs
Published by Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN (2004)
Click here to purchase on Amazon.com
Dr. Eggerichs bases his book on Ephesians 5:33, “Each of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Dr. Eggerichs makes that case that husbands hear criticism as contempt (lack of respect) and wives feel silence as hostility (lack of love). He also points out that “his love motivates her respect and her respect motivates his love.”
The question then becomes, “How can husbands show love and wives show respect?” Dr. Eggerichs develops the acronyms C-O-U-P-L-E for husbands to show love (Closeness, Openness, Understanding, Peacemaking, Loyalty, Esteem) and C-H-A-I-R-S for wives to show respect (Conquest, Hierarchy, Authority, Insight, Relationship, Sexuality). Throughout these chapters, Dr. Eggerichs gives practical stories and examples for how men and women can work to get out of the crazy cycle in marriage and into the energizing cycle and ultimately the rewarded cycle.
While these chapters are useful, I found the final chapters of the book most inspiring. Dr. Eggerichs proposes that we don’t have a “marriage crisis” in the Christian community; but rather, we have a crisis of faith. The real question to ask ourselves is “Am I really loving Jesus Christ?” For husband or wife, the conclusion is the same:
In the ultimate sense, your marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship to Jesus Christ.
meet the reviewer: jon schommer
Jon Schommer grew up in Calumetville, Wisconsin (dairy farm country) and currently lives in Woodbury, Minnesota. He has been married for 21 years to Lisa and they have two children; Dave aged 16 and Emily who will turn 14 in January 2010. Jon’s hobbies include gardening and hiking. During the summer, he enjoys golfing once or twice and during the winter he enjoys ice fishing a few times. Jon earned his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and currently is a professor at the University of Minnesota.
Thank you Jon for reviewing this wonderful book for us! I know that this book definitely was challenging for me as a wife to learn and practice respect in my marriage and I know that my husband has been very responsive to the ideas that I have learned through the scriptures on respecting a husband and God’s command to do so. Now we know how to get out of our own crazy cycle! Great read! Thanks again!