Love and Respect with Cindy Maxwell

Let’s talk about marriage for a minute. It's not a topic I cover often because marriage is one of those tricky subjects that none of us are really experts in. In Crunchy Super Mom Show Episode 040, I chatted specifically about a book, Love and Respect with my friend, Cindy Maxwell. I asked her to share her wisdom as she was the one who pointed me toward this great book.

Cindy has been married for 17 years (in 2020) and that is a huge accomplishment, especially in our society today. She homeschools her 6 kids and has been homeschooling them for 7 years. She’s also a crunchy mom.

Don’t Talk About Your Spouse

This may be a rule that you have never heard before, but one of the best ways to have a good marriage is to never talk about your spouse in a way that you wouldn’t want them to hear. You need to get their permission to disclose your marital concerns. It’s important that we seek guidance from someone who has a strong relationship to begin with. If a bunch of women sit around talking badly about their spouses, then it breeds that kind of attitude. It can also make divorce seem like a really good idea if you are all contemplating it together.

Unintentionally Withholding Love + Respect

As I shared on the podcast, I was completely shocked to find out that I was disrespecting my spouse. I personally believe it is more of a “withholding of respect” than what I would normally call disrespect. When I think of disrespectful behavior- I think of doing things to intentionally be hurtful to someone. However, Love and Respect showed me how wrong I was. 

I believe we are all guilty of withholding respect from our husbands and that in turn causes them to withhold love from us. This creates a vicious circle that has to be broken!

If we intentionally respect our spouse they will intentionally love us. 

How Can You Treat Him Better?

It’s perfectly ok to ask for help in treating your spouse better. It’s not a complaint and it’s really not even about them. You’re getting ideas on ways to love and respect your spouse to the best of your ability…and then some.

You can’t look for a way to change your spouse. You can change yourself, change how you respect him, and you can change how you respond to him when he doesn’t love you the way that you want. Changing ourselves is the key to improving our marriages. This does not mean allowing poor behavior, permitting abuse or violence, or any other negative behavior. It means changing how we respond to it. It’s perfectly ok to set boundaries and make requests.

When you start respecting your spouse, he starts loving you better. Sure, he signed up to love you no matter what but it’s part of human nature to protect ourselves so how can you expect your husband to be kind to you if you are making him feel as if you don’t like him? There was a great example in the book where a man was asked if his wife loved him and he said--”Absolutely, but she doesn’t like me!”

Imagine feeling that way every day. It makes sense that if we make our spouse feel like we are critical of everything he does or says. “Without without love, she reacts and without respect, he reacts.” I don't disrespect my husband. I mean to me, I define disrespect as saying mean things, insulting him, interrupting him, going against his wishes all the time on purpose, and just being malicious or something. 

And I think you would say the same, right? I don't do what he wants me to do. I don't always agree with him. I don't disrespect him. But then reading, I realize because I'm the crunchy supermom, who stays home with my kids, sets our meal plan, sets our routines, and figures out homeschooling, that I disrespect him by saying: this is what our family does, you can join us.

I don't have to say it verbally, but that's just how we live our lives. But when you have that attitude, you're actually taking away the component of teamwork. You're taking the component away of a marriage, because you're not working together on the goal. You're setting the goal, and you're like, you can work alongside me if you're interested. And that's not what marriage is about. And in a way, it is a form of disrespect, but nobody would really put that title to it unless you told them.

Ephesians 5:33 New International Version (NIV)

However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Women naturally love. If we give something, it is love. Even though men do love, they do it differently. The thing they need most is respect, which is something we are not giving naturally as a woman. But even though men love, they love differently, the thing that they need the most is respect. 

Your husband will die for you, he will literally die for you. But he might not give you affirmations and like dote on you, but he would die for you. And if that's not love, what is?  There is a saying that no husband feels fond feelings of affection and love in his heart, when he believes his wife has contempt for who he is as a human being. Right and, and that's, that's why that story stuck 

How I Knew that I Wasn’t Respecting My Husband

He came home from deployment and we were in our routine. He said: “ I feel like this is not my house. This is not my life. I walked into this, and you guys do your thing. And if I want to do something, it's as if I'm taking the stilt out from under the house and everything comes crashing down.”

Are you carrying out your Super Mom life creating a divide in your marriage.

So here are a few simple steps to increasing the respect you give to your husband:

1. Ask him for his opinion on things. Tell him you value his opinion and would like it on a specific topic or situation.
2. Avoid shutting him down the next time he has a request or idea. Ask questions and validate his opinion. “Give him the rope to hang himself” with his bad idea if that is what you feel it is. He will feel more respected by you not shutting him down than if you tell him his idea is horrible.
3. Write down ways that you see the “Crazy cycle” starting. What does he do or say that makes you want to “disrespect” or withhold respect from him?