On page 282, Dr. Eggerichs admits that his advice isn’t working for many people. That he receives tons of letters from frustrated people who have tried that advice in their marriage only to watch it backfire on them. Then he quotes from a letter where a wife actually “regrets” telling her husband “what I learned from you because he uses it against me each time. I can take the criticism. I feel I deserve it—but his rage…makes me want to get away and hide.”
That says it all right there. So what exactly is backfiring on these people?
First of all let’s look at the main focus of this book.
Dr. Eggerichs writes, “My theory says that the wife has a tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to the husband—thus the command to respect—and the husband has a tendency to react in ways that feel unloving to the wife—thus the command to love.” (p. 319)
“A man needs to feel honored for who he is—the image and glory of God—because God made him that way.” (p. 322)
Of course, husbands need respect, but aren’t wives also made in God’s image and thus deserving of respect, too?
Dr. Eggerichs insists, “I still believe that women want love far more than respect and men want respect far more than love. I’ll illustrate that from the greeting card industry” which is one of the best “examples of women’s deepest values.” (p. 48)
“When women buy greeting cards for their husbands, they want to express love for them; they don’t even think about respect. Sadly, the deepest yearning of husbands goes unmet because wives—and the card publishers—are locked into relaying sentiments of love.”
Later he adds,
“Women are the ones who have babies and that’s one reason that birthdays are a big deal to them.” (p. 177)
“Wives don’t need a lot of coaching on being loving. It’s something God built into them and they do it naturally. However they do need help with respect” because “this a foreign term to many women.” (p. 183)
“This is not about the husband deserving respect; it’s about the wife being willing to treat her husband respectfully WITHOUT CONDITIONS.” (p. 18)[...]
