However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband (Ephesians 5:33 ESV).

This verse is the basis for the Love and Respect system as promoted by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. His Love and Respect book, DVD series, and seminars have become very popular and have been a great benefit to many couples throughout the country. The fundamental principle that women need love and men need respect and that each should give what the other needs unconditionally has great value in a marriage.

But how, exactly, can a man communicate love and a wife communicate respect? This is the subject of The Language of Love & Respect: Cracking the Communication Code With Your Mate, by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.

This book was previously published as Cracking the Communication Code but has now been helpfully re-titled in order to better demonstrate its alignment with the core love and respect principles presented in the original Love and Respect.

The Language of Love and Respect can be seen as the "intermediate" or "advanced" level of the Love and Respect concept. The fundamental concepts of Love and Respect are presented in the first part of the book-- women need love, men need respect, they should not step on each other's air hose, men see the world and hear the world as men and women as women, "blue" and "pink," not wrong, just different, and the three cycles: the crazy cycle, the energized cycle, and the rewarded cycle. This recap is beneficial, but the reader would benefit from a thorough study of the original book on Love and Respect.

The Language of Love and Respect then returns to each of the three cycles-- the crazy cycle, the energized cycle, and the rewarded cycle-- and expands on the concepts presented. The reader is introduced to the process by which Emerson came to his conclusions. More examples of the difficulties and how to get beyond them are presented. The reader will more likely than not find him or herself within many of those situations and thus can benefit from considering them.

The focus on the "crazy" cycle is how to decode the message the spouse is presenting-- how to get behind the argued issue to understand the underlying difficulty. In the "energized" cycle, the focus is on how to apply COUPLE and CHAIRS, the means by which to energize women and men, respectively, and how to clarify communication before the "craziness" begins.

For the crazy and energized cycles there is just an expansion of the concepts already presented in Love and Respect, and such is valuable. More is presented with the rewarded cycle, focusing on the "Jesus way of talking," using principles in Ephesians 4-5 regarding speaking in ways that are consistent with Jesus-- words of truth, encouragement, forgiveness, thankfulness, and Scripture.

The Language of Love and Respect, therefore, is the ideal next step after one has considered Love and Respect-- finding ways to put the principles into practice in everyday communication. The Language of Love and Respect emphasizes not only the Biblical principles that lead to better marriage but places its own emphasis on how, in the end, it's not about the marriage as much as it is about God in Christ. We must "be Jesus" in our marital relationships, relationships with children, parents, employers, employees, friends, etc.

Eggerichs is an Evangelical and apologizes in the book for total depravity and "once saved, always saved"; nevertheless, these do not really affect the concepts and principles in this book.

Everyone who is in a marriage relationship or intends to be in a marriage relationship at some point will benefit from the Love and Respect material, and The Language of Love & Respect is a welcome addition to that material. This is a must read for both husbands and wives! ( )

Shows couples how to speak to each other and give mutual understanding to build a successful marriage.