It’s impossible for Emerson Eggerichs’ ideas in Love & Respect to work in practice.
Because what he tells men to do and what he tells women to do are completely and utterly mutually exclusive. So something will have to give. And in Eggerichs’ world, that’s always the wife.
Everything we’ve done here at Bare Marriage since our change of direction in 2019 is due to the book Love & Respect. I read it one Friday afternoon in January, and our world collapsed. I knew I had to do something about it, once I saw the horrible advice in it.
And thus began our huge research projects, where we wanted to see if the advice given in evangelical books like this one helped or harmed. And, not surprisingly to us, we found that it definitely harmed, and our first shot across the bow was our book The Great Sex Rescue.
Tomorrow another phase in our Love & Respect project launches. The first episode in our 3-episode docuseries about Love & Respect will air on the Bare Marriage podcast, as well as the Good Fruit Faith YouTube and podcast channels. We’re doing a deep dive into the book in a way that we haven’t before, looking at the ways that it plagiarized older works while claiming to be a totally new insight; looking at how Emerson Eggerichs’ own trauma as a child is lived out in his advice; and looking at the totally unscientific claims that he makes. We’ve got experts coming on to share their perspectives too.
The first episode that launches tomorrow is an overview of the book, and shows the central flaw:
You cannot have both COUPLE and CHAIRS at the same time.
In Love & Respect, Eggerichs claims that women “desire” love, and men “desperately need” respect (interesting framing there, right from the subtitle, about who will be prioritized). And he spells the LOVE that women need COUPLE, and the respect that men need CHAIRS. Here’s what that stands for:
COUPLE
Closeness: Proximity and connection.
Openness: Sharing thoughts and not being withdrawn.
Understanding: Listening without trying to “fix”.
Peacemaking: Apologizing and resolving conflict.
Loyalty: Commitment and safety.
Esteem: Honoring and cherishing.
CHAIRS
Conquest: Appreciating his desire to work/achieve.
Hierarchy: Appreciating his desire to provide/protect.
Authority: Supporting his role.
Insight: Valuing his counsel/analysis.
Relationship: Engaging in shoulder-to-shoulder activity.
Sexuality: Understanding his need for intimacy.
What she needs is basic ingredients to intimacy
She needs to feel close; to have open and honest communication where you can each share what’s on your heart.
She needs him to apologize when he’s wrong and to repair any breeches.
She needs to feel cherished and loved and that he cares about her.
Now, here’s the thing: if you were to look up the ingredients to healthy relationships and to intimacy, these would all be there. Always. Because this is just basic. This is what goes into an intimate, healthy relationship. You show the person they matter. You care about their thoughts and feelings. You open up. You tend to the relationship.
Yep. It’s all good.
But here’s the problem:
What he needs goes directly against intimacy
He needs to be in authority over her where he makes the final decisions and can override what she thinks. He needs her to understand that his insight is more important than hers. He needs her to spend time with him in relationship where she says absolutely nothing at all, because her words are a problem.
He needs her to have sex with him even when he’s distant and she doesn’t want to.
He needs her not to correct him, because if she does she’s being disrespectful.
So her ideas and opinions don’t matter. Her insight into the relationship doesn’t matter. When she feels distant and wants him to change, that doesn’t matter because to say something would be to disrespect him.
Love and Respect
One Sheet
Everything Harmful with Love and Respect Summarized on One Sheet!
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There is no possible way to live out both COUPLE and CHAIRS
You cannot have an intimate relationship where you both matter while simultaneously making sure that her needs and wants and feelings are subordinate to his, and that she doesn’t step on any toes.
And what happens when the needs butt heads? Then Eggerichs says she must respect her husband unconditionally, and over and over again in the book we see how the wife’s needs don’t ultimately matter.
As Chuck DeGroat said in our interview with him for the podcast docuseries, the whole CHAIRS idea is really about coddling an insecure man. It is not about pursuing a healthy relationship, but rather about making sure that a man never has to grow. His wife will just coddle him forever and make sure he never has to experience anything negative.
It’s the ultimate in making your wife your mommy.
Love & Respect was never about creating healthy marriages.
It was about protecting men’s fragile egos (as Emerson Eggerichs speaks about liberally in the book.
Tomorrow we start our three part docuseries with Rebecca’s in-depth look at the book. We want the docuseries to appeal to the younger, millennial audience that may not have heard of us, but that appreciates deep dives. Please share it when it launches! Let other people know about the series. And maybe, for once, there may just be a reckoning for an evangelical culture that taught millions upon millions of couples to disregard a wife’s legitimate needs in favour of coddling men.
Other Posts about the Issues in Love & Respect by Emerson Eggerichs
Must Read Overall Synopsis:
Our Resources:
- Download our One-Sheet Summary of the Problems with Love & Respect
- Our Rubric and Scorecard Outlining Why Love & Respect Scored 0/48 on Healthy Sexuality
- An Outline of How Emerson Eggerichs Misuses Scripture in Love & Respect
- I’m Passing the Torch on Love & Respect. 10 Ways You Can Pick it Up
Basic Issues with Love & Respect:
- A Review of Love and Respect: How the Book Gets Sex Horribly Wrong
- Love and Respect: Why Unconditional Respect Can’t Work
- The Ultimate Flaw in the Book Love and Respect: Jesus Isn’t at the Center
- Is It Okay if Christian Marriage Books are Just a Little Bit Harmful?
Problems with How Emerson Eggerichs Handles Abuse:
- Dissecting a Sermon Series where Emerson Eggerichs Gaslights Abuse Victims
- Love & Respect is Being Used by the BDSM Community to Convince Wives to Submit to Domination
- How Emerson Eggerichs Misses Examples of Marital Rape
Podcasts Discussing these Issues:
- Why Unconditional Respect Isn't a Thing (and how the verse the book is based on, and the survey data the book is based on, don't hold water).
- An Example from Eggerichs' blog of Eggerichs Gaslighting Women (we work through line by line)
- Dissecting Eggerichs' Love & Respect Sermons at Houston's First Baptist Church, with His Dismissal of Abuse
- How Emerson Eggerichs Ignores Marital Rape, plus our interview with The Woman Crying in the Shower
- How Emerson Eggerichs Misuses Scripture in Love & Respect
- Our Love & Respect Wrap Up
I’m so excited for this!!! Almost every relationship teaching from ‘90’s and ‘00’s Evangelicalism was how to coddle men. (It was probably true in the ‘80’s, too, but I was a Lutheran then).
And let’s be real – demanding “coddling,” needing to be right and have your way, requiring $ex, needing to be king of the hill is all abusive. My immature husband was going to be abusive regardless of what our environment was, but the Church rubber stamped his behavior, and that kept us both trapped for longer than we might have otherwise been.
The work you all are doing is so vital!!!
It’s all abusive. All of it. We need to get rid of it all and start over!