Thursday, April 05, 2012

Love & Respect

Earlier this year Charity and I started leading a Life Group at our church.  We knew we wanted to do a marriage group since the health of marriages is important to the both of us but we're totally sure what study to do.  We ended up landing on Love & Respect since a few people who we would start the group with had recently purchased the book.

Something that I always say for people who are in groups is: "What is said in group stays in group."  I will apply that same principle here but I want to share some of my personal thoughts about the book and how it is impacting my personal life and my marriage.  The group has been going for just over ten weeks now and I have to be honest it has been really challenging for my marriage.

Let me explain that more so I can help you to see where I am coming from.  Over seven years ago I started working on my Masters Degree.  A few months after that I accepted a call to ministry at my church.  After moving to Nevada I went back to California where Charity and I were married.  We started working hard in ministry and that meant I would stop in Masters Degree.  We finally got to a place where we thought I could resume my studies and so for the last six years I have focused more on finishing school that I have on our marriage.  This sucks for me!  The book has revealed to me my failures in marriage and that is tough.

The book is basically broken into two sections:

The Crazy Cycle:


The Energizing Cycle:
It seems that with both the charts its pretty self explanatory.  So my main goal, in the next few weeks, is to help energize my marriage.  Something that is going to play a huge part in this is my leaving for sabbatical on April 26th and my graduation from seminary on April 28th.

2 comments:

Greg G. said...

I was wondering what your thoughts would be on this book as a whole. It seems to me that books like this and Wild at Heart stereotype men and women into separate categories. You have met my wife and know she is not your typical woman. So what would you say to someone like me who these models don't seem to apply?

Neal Benson said...

Great question man! Charity and I have actually talked about this. I think most writers are writing to the "largest audience possible" or in other words trying to get the most people to read their book.

In this case I would say that the author is doing something similar judging by the stories but he is pulling a Biblical principle to help couples communicate better. I think that like any book you have to read it and apply what will work for your life.

He is writing to the general public and we have to figure out what principles we can take to help us be better husbands. Hope that makes sense.