The Language of Love and Respect-Cracking the Communication Code with Your Mate by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs
The Language of Love and Respect - Cracking the Communication Code with Your Mate is a follow up to his successful book and conference series entitled “Love and Respect” which is based on Ephesians 5:33 which states “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Having attended the conference and read the first book I had a basic understanding before starting the book. But for anyone who has not read the previous book or attended the conference, there is a review at the beginning of this book. As a whole, I found the book to be “wordy” and long. There were many examples which were helpful but I felt that some of the examples could be considered petty or mild. Couples with more severe issues would not necessarily benefit from the examples that were used.
The positives of the book are many. There were scripture references throughout with side boxes that drew your attention to key verses. Eggerichs uses many acronyms to help couples remember the steps in communicating with your spouse such as COUPLE (Closeness, Openness, Understanding, Peacemaking, Loyalty, Esteem) and CHAIRS (Conquest, Hierarchy, Authority, Insight, Relationship, Sexuality). The book also goes through the 3 cycles of a marriage, The Energizing Cycle, the Crazy Cycle, and the Reward Cycle.
The book does a good job of explaining how men and women are not wrong, just different. We are basically pink and blue. But if we apply biblical principles, we blend those colors to become purple, the color of royalty, the color of God. In essence, we have a marriage that God is pleased with. I was most impressed with the chapter on forgiveness as well as the sample prayers that readers can use to ask God to help them through this journey.
All-in-all I liked the book but I do feel that it could have been condensed. I believe the book would be an asset to any marriages’ library.
