Love And Respect by Emerson Eggerichs Addendum

Before I go on with the commentary on Love & Respect, I mentioned a few times that I do agree with Eggerichs about unconditional respect being something that should be given (however to all people, not just husbands). However, we are worlds apart about what this actually means and how it plays out.

"However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." Eph 5:33 First of all, there are scholars that believe this should be translated as husbands love your wives as yourself that the wife may respect the husband. That may be true but I will leave that to the scholars.

For the sake of this argument, let's say that Eggerichs is right, that the scripture says you must respect your husband and respect him unconditionally. Many marriages start out pretty well and the wife lovingly shares her needs and is often ignored. This is seen as contempt and the wife often asks harder and gets more upset when he just doesn't seem to care about her and her needs.

Often, there are issues in the marriage relationship such as addiction, abuse and other issues where the husband demands sex and care from her but doesn't meet her emotional or other needs. There is a book from the 1980's that was a New York Times best seller written by Robin Norwood who was a licensed marriage, family and child therapist. In this book, Robin talks about dysfunctional marriages and homes and, although some of the book is dated, the main message of the book is, in my opinion, sound. I think it also is a somewhat universal message, given the number of copies it sold.

In this book, she outlines the behavior of "Women Who Love Too Much" and lists a road to recovery. So when I am talking about unconditional respect, I am talking about one of the steps in this list. Here is the list:

Go for help.
Make your own recovery the first priority in your life.
Find a support group of peers who understand.
Develop your spiritual side through daily practice.
Stop managing and controlling others.
Learn to not get "hooked" into the games.
Courageously face your own problems and shortcomings.
Cultivate whatever needs to be developed in yourself.
Become "selfish." (She carefully explains how women make themselves small for others.)
Share with others what you have experienced and learned.

In a poor marriage, there is often a woman who is exasperated and desperately needing help. When I talk about the unconditional respect, I am really talking about step #5 in this book. Let's use an example of a man who is a workaholic. The wife always made excuses for him as to why he couldn't do this or that. She covered for him. She may have lied for him. She, in my opinion, is doing what Eggerichs is defining as "respect." She makes herself smaller and her needs less because he will not change, he will not come to his daughter's birthday party because he is always "working." She always covered for him for so long but realizes this is not working and he will not change.

Step#5. Stop Managing and Controlling Him.

Ok, Emerson. Let's really respect our husbands and really stop asking him to change. What does this look like in reality?

"What it means-To stop managing and controlling him means not helping and not giving advice. Let's please assume that this other adult whom you are aiding and advising has as much capacity as you have to find himself a job, an apartment, a therapist and AA meeting or whatever he needs. He may not have as much motivation as you to find these things for himself, or to work on his own problems. But when you take on trying to solve his problems for him, he is freed from his own responsibility for his life. You are then in charge of his welfare and when your efforts on his behalf fail, you will be the one he blames." (pg 237 Women Who Love Too Much)

Respect. Let the wife see that she reverence her husband. This means do not emsmallinate yourself. Do not lie for him. Do not make up stories to make him look other than he is. Do not look for jobs for him. Assume that he has as much capacity as yourself. Respect. This is the exact opposite of the way Eggerichs defines respect in his book Love & Respect. The only similarity will be perhaps that you quit asking. Eggerichs defines it as "hammering." If you can recognize it as letting him go and respecting him enough to be the adult he is and not rescuing him from himself or his own responsibilities and actions, perhaps we might find a good definition for the word respect that does not diminish you as a person. "Not managing or controlling him also means stepping out of the role of encouraging and praising him.....Is it to help his self esteem? That's manipulation.....it means to stop watching....it means detaching.......it requires learning to say and do nothing. THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT TASKS YOU FACE IN YOUR RECOVERY. When life is unmanageable, when everything in you wants to take over, to advise and encourage him, to manipulate the situation in whatever way you can, you must learn to hold still, to respect this other person enough to allow the struggle to be his, not yours." (pg 238-239 Women Who Love Too Much)

Ironically, this type of respect can throw a man into a panic and he may try as hard as he can to push you to go back to Eggerichs definition of "respect," to get you to argue, to make yourself smaller again, to rescue him from his own actions. "As long as he can fight with you, make you promises, try to win you back, his struggle is outside, with you, and not inside with himself." (pg 241, 242)

So when I read the words in Eph 5:33, "However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband," I imagine women whose husbands have ignored them for years stepping back everywhere, and respecting their husbands enough to let them go, let them face the consequences for their own actions and to stop ensmallinating themselves.

This writing is the copyright of Lynne Johnson-Yohnk and was posted with her permission. It was originally posted on her Paradigm Shift Page. Additional articles may be viewed here.

Page added January 3, 2026

Shop at our Amazon store! This website is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.