Love & Respect, by Emmerson Eggerichs

I don't know about you, but I can always use some help being a better husband.  Emerson Eggerichs's book Love and Respect: The Love He She Most Desires, The Respect He Desperately Needs can be a great resource for many couples.  However, while the principles he addresses are certainly universal and solid, the application probably does not apply to many marriages.  Marriages are as different and varied as we are.  I've found that books on marriage often fail to connect by universalizing what helps some couples, trying to apply to all couples.

Eggerichs bases his teaching on Ephesians 5:33: "Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."  He says that Paul intentionally did not say the wife must love her husband and that a husband must respect his wife because those come naturally to men and women.  I'm not sure about that assumption.  I may be mistaken, but it seems like the book is weighed much more heavily toward the wife respecting the husband side of that equation. 

I wouldn't mind going to one of Eggerichs's Love and Respect marriage conferences.  Any book or conference like this that triggers your thinking about marriage roles and being a better spouse has value, whatever quibbles I have with the presentation.

The best line from the book was from a story he told about a couple they counseled.  The couple was in a "crazy cycle" and the wife had refused to have sex with her husband for some time.  She was speaking with her mom, whose long, happy marriage the daughter admired.  Mom's advice: Stop denying sex! Why not do something that takes so little time and makes him so happy?  She wins the mother-in-law of the year award!

So my feeling is mixed on this book.  It definitely has some helpful sections, but, depending on your personality and the personality of your marriage, it may not hit home with you.