BraveMen S3E53: Emerson Eggerichs - Love And Respect. Building Relationships That Last

So Chris, when it comes down to love or respect, which one do you want? Oh, that's a good question. Man, and you caught me off guard. Yeah, no, I did that on purpose. I think honestly love. Okay, you're going for love. Yeah, and the reason why is because respect all some time, and I could be wrong, which I know you're going to go. Yeah, you could be. Yeah, we'll figure it out though. In fact, Dr. Egrich here in just a moment is going to tell us both. Yes. How we've kind of slightly missed it, and he's going to correct it. Exactly. So go for it. So give it your best one. I mean, love because respect is usually tied to liking, and I don't care if you like me. Ooh, but you have to love me. Yeah, okay. But you're not married, you're single. Exactly. All right. But love is not tied to marriage. Okay. It says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, and love your neighbor. Yeah. Well, I'm your neighbor. Dr. Egrich, who's on with us today, is dealing with marriage. Yes. And the one thing you don't want to have in a marriage is for you and your wife to be neighbors. Yes, that's true. That might embed. Well, no, that way. We'll embed. You don't want to be like living next to each other, living together. That's usually the best way the marriages work. And Emerson Egrich is with us today. He's an internationally known public speaker, but he wrote the book, Love and Respect. He said it's two major issues that they did over 7,000, what do you call them, surveys? Wow. And they said it was the key thing. And every man in his marriage wanted to be respected in every woman wanted to be loved. Wow. All right. So, you know, I think it's fascinating because we all want to be loved. And most of us except for you would like to want to be liked. Don't give a rip. Okay. Well, that's fascinating. The truth causes you sometimes not to be liked. I'm going to tell the truth. I'm going to tell the truth. Okay. So, but his whole deal, I mean, this guy was a pastor for 20 years. Yes. And then he and his wife really hit on this thing. He wrote Love and Respect out of basically their own church and working with people through their own stuff. And so, when he, when he wrote this, he and his wife Sarah, it was like they'd been married for a number of years. They had children growing up. He writes this book. It takes off. And they made the very brave step of moving out and going, we're going to just take this on road and do conferences. And they've done some of the largest marriage conferences in the world. Yes. It's phenomenal. Yeah, he's talked to NFL owners, P.J. players, all kinds of guys. Yes. All over the world. All different types of people. It's amazing. You know, the New York Giants. He probably helped them win the Super Bowl. Dude, I don't know. I guess I wouldn't have done the interview if I don't name that. Shoot. And then Love and Respect is a platinum book winner. Yeah. Sold a couple of million copies. Yeah. And I mean, it's amazing too. He's wrote 12 books, you know, including New York Best Seller. Yeah. Love and Respect. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, so I'm really excited. I was so thankful that you were able to get a hold of them. We put this together this time. Yeah. He and I had an absolutely fascinating conversations. I'm excited today for everyone to hear our friend, Emerson Egrich. It's Brave Man. With Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. And with Dr. Emerson Egrich and talking about marriage and things of manhood. And this man is one of the leading world experts on all that stuff. I'm expecting Dr. Egrich by the end of this little time together. I will be awesome as a husband. It's going to be unbelievable when I walk out of the studio. I know it already. You're not walking out. You're going to float out, baby. You're going to float out. You wrote a book. You were pastoring. Very successful pastor. You grew the church. You built an incredible facility on 70 acres there in East Lansing, Michigan. And then you wrote a book called Love and Respect. And that thing just took off. And God pivoted, if you will, you and your wife and your lives, your family. And you've had an amazing impact. In fact, I'll just share it with you right now. The other day, because I knew we were going to talk, I played one of your videos. And my wife is in the other room and she goes, oh, is that love and respect? She's in the other room and I go, well, I could be what would you mean? She goes, oh, I love that guy. And right there, I knew I was getting a hint. I mean, right then, it's like, okay, all right. So anyway, thank you. I guess what you do, Emerson, is you build this amazing, perfect marriage. And then you write a book about it. Is that the way it works? No, you write about all your mistakes and failings. But no, I think it came out as scripture as you reference. I passed it and I saw something in the Bible that I hadn't seen before. And then I've got my PhD in family studies. And I saw some things in research that echoed that. And that kind of converged together. And it's a simple message that's helped a lot of people. And men end up in the theater. In fact, when I wrote love and respect, the publisher said, hey, we want you to write it to women. And I knew where that was going. And I said, well, why? And well, women, the ones, they're the ones that read the marriage books. And I said, did it ever occur to you that the reason women are reading the marriage book is because you keep telling guys like me to write books to women. Damn. You know, I said, where in the scripture is a man disinterested in marriage? You're not going to see that psychological framework, which most could describe to you that women are the ones who are really, really interested in marriage. But the men are not. Well, that's not represented in courtship. Men are very engaged. So what happens? Do they become indifferent? Or does he have a different mother tongue that she tends to speak early in courtship? But then she stops speaking that later on. And understandably so at many levels. But biblically, in Malachi, he breaks the covenant. And proverb she breaks the covenant. I went through every passage dealing with husbands and wives that pertain to the Christ follower, both in the Old and New Testament. And realized it's pretty even. The Lord doesn't have that. And a tendency to kind of say that the man is all the problems and the one is not contributing to that. Plus focus on the family sponsored us for four years and did a major research piece. And one of the findings is that 49% of those who initiate coming to our conference is the man. Wow. So men are not indifferent. Men are not indifferent. But what happens men feel beat up because we tend to say, you know, happy, you know, wife, happy life. So if you're not loving, the reason she's not happy is that you're full. And there's truth to that. But that's not the whole picture. So we've tried to be fair and balanced. And I think hopefully also acknowledge what women feel very, I think accurately, maybe why your wife references that, because we're very committed to representing her deepest heart as well. So that's been our mission. So tell me, what's the nexus of love and respect? What's the essence of it? Is that the nexus, the centrist? Yes, that's what I thought. Okay. The, I thought you said, what's next for love and respect? Oh, but the essence of it is based on Ephesians 5.33 where God commands a husband to love and a wife to respect. And that's what I saw in that verse that I realized, well, no one debates that first part about loving a wife. That's just not a debate. But the idea of respecting a man, women have said, well, he hasn't earned it, he doesn't deserve it, he's not superior to me, I'm not inferior to him, I don't feel it, and I'm not going to be effective showing him something I don't feel. I'm certainly not going to subject myself to emotional abuse. I'm not going to beat his ego, his narcissism, which is all about, I think you want to return to a smell of patriarchy. That's where this is really going. That's your hidden agenda. I'm not going to worship the guy. But other than these things, I'm really open to hearing what you have to say about this. And that's where many women are. And they're not being spirited. They're really fearful. So I was up against some things when I saw this in the Bible, that what you and I as men, we serve a diaphronor. So we go see the gladiator. That's why he said we pride Orion. We weep. We're not unemotional. We just don't get emotional about the things that women feel sentimentality about. But we are very deep feelings. And so I realized I was up against something. What men felt, the honor code that we live by, and what women feel is totally different. And but as I got into that, I helped bring definition of that. But I also at this moment of meditation, I discovered what I call the crazy cycle. That without love, she tends to react in ways that feel disrespectful to him, without respect. He tends to react in ways that feel unloving to her. And thus was born the crazy cycle without love. She reacts without respect, without respect. He reacts without love. And this baby starts to spend among people of good will. There isn't ill will. And I always make the point that she needs respect, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and he needs L-O-V-E. But we've asked 7,000 people this question. When you're in a conflict with your spouse, do you feel unloved at that moment or disrespected? And all 83% of the men say they feel disrespected. Wow. 72% of the women say they feel unloved. So again, she needs respect and he needs love. But at the end of a movie, you don't have the hero embrace the damsel and say, I want to respect you the rest of my life. And there's no card in the whole card industry from a husband to wife on the 10th anniversary, is that baby, I really respect you. Wow. So you follow the money, and that'll show the true values what people feel. And yes, she needs to be respected. Sarah will say, you're not respecting my opinion. And there are times that men feel unloved. But within the nature of women is to nurture. Women love to love. God does not command her to a copy love. There's no Greek word to command her to copy love. Only weird command to a government. Wow. Because he put it within the nature of a woman to love. So almost every man in this planet, if you say, hey, Harriet, is your wife loving? Oh, yeah. Does she like you? No. Not too bad. So the men are, unless she is set, I don't love you. And she's having an affair. Most men are not insecure. When a man is in a conflict with his wife, he doesn't feel unloved. He feels disrespected. And that's why this thing gets crazy. And then he reacts in a way that he's not trying to be a lover. He's trying to do the honorable thing by de-escalating this thing. But we end up making choices when we move toward the husband aggressively to talk. We need to talk right now because she's feeling insecure, needing reassurance, but she comes across as disrespectful. Wow. He tends, his heartbeat skipped the 99 beats per minute. This has been documented. So he needs to calm down. It's not that big of a deal. Drop it, forget it. I don't want to talk about it anymore. So in our world, you and I, that would be honorable. Because the relationship is more important than this stupid thing we're talking about. Right. So we disengage. So that's why we do our wife and she labels us on loving. And she keeps chasing after us, and we relabel her as disrespectful. Because no one treats me as disrespectful as you do. Everybody respects me. But now we have a huge misunderstanding between two people who are good, well, who are confused. So now what you've done is you've jumped in the middle of that and given us tools to understand what each other is trying to say. Correct. Well, first of all, what is the, what's going on? I mean, many companies are having a conflict over how much sex are going to have, they're having a conflict over how much money they're going to spend. And they think that the conflict is about sex and money. And in and of itself, it is that's a real issue. But once I start coming across to Sarah's Unloving or starts coming across to me as disrespectful, now that's no longer the root issue. The root issue is I'm feeling disrespected. She's feeling in love. So now we got two issues on the table. And many people don't know the root issue. Well, the root issue that's really the problem here is that she begins to feel in love. It's not that she doesn't want to deal with money management, but she walked away from you because she was feeling so in love. And now you're feeling disrespected, but see, you know. And so our campaign has been to serve couples of goodwill. And so these happen to the best of couples, but there's this undercurrent of tension. And so the first thing we try to do is help people understand that crazy cycle. And if the shoe fits where, if it doesn't, I'm not trying to force the shoe on. But then now comes the second question. Well, given, yeah, that's awesome. A lot of occasions, how do we get off? And that then is where we try to provide tools to decode and to do ways to manage that. You're not going to get off of it permanently because we have a pink and blue perspective. Sarah, I get on the crazy cycle every week, but we know how to jump off quicker. Well, you recognize it. You immediately go up. And in fact, that was your very first episode of your podcast a few years ago. And now has become a theme in a book and so forth called The Crazy Cycle, right? Correct. Yeah. That's exactly it. You know, it's funny. I thought it makes me, it reminds me of a conversation. We were on our way to the Cowboys game, and we were with some friends, and we had breakfast ahead of time. And they were talking about a couple really having problems. And her whole thing was that he would shut down and wouldn't talk. And she said, his shutdown moment was, your right, I'm wrong, and I don't deserve you. You know, your right, I'm wrong, I don't deserve you. So my wife, Judy, turned me. And she says, we've been married 30 years at this time. She says, well, that's what you say to me. I said, I don't say that to you. Your right, I'm wrong, I deserve you. I said, what I say to you over and over is, your God's gift to me. I love you. She paused for a moment, looked at me, and she goes, same thing. Yeah, same thing. Shoot, man. I've never forgotten that whole thing because a lot of those things that we think are different as guys all kind of come into the, Well, a great couple wrote that book a number of years ago, men are like waffles, women like spaghetti, and that whole spaghetti thing that's all interconnected, all kind of molds together there. You know, what is it, what is it that, if I had a tool, a couple tools, you know, because you do the podcasts, you do, you've got books, you've got millions of people who follow you on Facebook, you're consistently putting out fantastic content, you and your wife minister together. What would be something that, that you would say, and I'm just talking about the marriage thing, I want to get into the fatherhood piece in a minute, but in this marriage piece, what is it that you would consistently say, what words or actions do you do that, that bring peace, fullness between you and your wife? Well, I think the key is for a man to say, is that what I'm about to say, or do you're going to feel or, you know, the loving to her or sound loving to her? And it's not necessarily fair, because the deal is we would literally die for our wives. You know, I mean, one husband said to his wife, you know, I love you so much, I'd die for you. She said, oh, Harry, you keep saying that, but you never do. So even there, you know, you get scared of the size. So I mean, the idea is that, you know, you're trying to do the loving thing, but I think the issue is, okay, wait a minute. This isn't about how I feel what I'm doing. It's really about how she's interpreting that. And a lot of times, I misrepresent myself, and therefore Sarah's going to misinterpret me. So when, for instance, 85 percent of those who withdraw during a conflict is the male, because the University of Washington studied 2,000 couples for 20 years, and they were measuring many variables, not the least of which was the physiological reactions. A woman can look like she's out of control, but her heartbeats are normal. He's stoic and setting their heartbeats up to 99 beats per minute. When you get up to 99 beats per minute, you're flooded, emotional. You're not going to engage it. You have to calm down, you have to withdraw. And that warrior mode is there to protect that woman in the event that someone comes in to kill her. It's just that adrenaline shoots and we die. That's what's been happening all over America with these shootings. People talk about toxic masculinity. You need to talk about virtuous masculinity because all the men are dying. They're throwing themselves on their wives and their girlfriends taking the bullet, walks out, they carry him out. But the point is that adrenaline is there in us. And so when that gets triggered in a conflict, he's got to withdraw. And 85% of those who do that are men. And so why? Because he's trying to do the honorable thing. But in the research, the woman said it feels like an act of hostility. So now we come to an interesting question. Is an active honor or an act of hostility? The answer is yes. The answer is yes. It just depends on whether you videotape in blue or you videotape in pink. One of the things that we have to do as men is ask ourselves, okay, we're doing the honorable thing. But does it come across as the hostile thing? And then we can dismiss her. Well, she ought not to feel that that's unloving because I'm trying to do the respectful thing. And I'm all on board with you. It's just not going to be effective. You know, you can't dismiss that. So you have to give this woman, who is a virtuous woman, a good woman, you know, she is and give her the benefit of the doubt that she has a vulnerability and a need where we don't. And so my relationship with Sarah, she's starting to deflate and I can see it. Then I just have to say, okay, we'll stop feeling that way. That's one way I could talk to her or I can then, you know, I have to kind of, I'm not trying to be unloving here. I'm trying to do the respectful thing. But, you know, we're neither one of us are wrong. We're just different here. But let's let's talk about this. We got the issue. And now I'm now I'm going to probably have to apologize for coming across as unloving. I get that. That wasn't my motive. Well, I know you're not trying to be unloving, but that's how it felt. Well, you go back and forth. And on the flip side, the researchers found out that women criticize and complain, criticize complaint, criticize complaint during conflict, criticism complaint. And then felt that's an act of contempt because there isn't anybody that does this. It's just wears them out. But we know women are these nurtures. They do it because it's an act of care. So it raises that question. Is it an act of contempt or is it an act of care? The answer is yes. It just depends on whether you videotape in pink or blue. And so the woman, even though you're carrying that, you can be right, but wrong at the top of your voice. You can be motivated. You can be motivated very well to be a caring person. But if your husband is feeling disrespected, then you got to give him the benefit of the doubt here. Or you can just say, he's narcissistic, that profile on the internet fits you to a tee. You can be dismissing or you can just say, he has a vulnerability where you don't have. And once two people come to that realization, where you see the spirit of your spouse deflate, she needs love like she needs to celebrate, he needs respect like he needs to celebrate, got these respect tanks, left things connected by an air hose. When we step on their air hose, they're going to deflate. And so we can either tell them when they're suffocating and deflating that they ought not to feel that way. And at times, maybe they ought not to. But I have the 80-20 rule, 80% of the time, if they're a good, well-person and they're deflating, then I probably am stepping on their air hoes. Did I intend to? No. Did I intend to? No. But so then because I didn't intend to, should I tell them they ought not to be vulnerable? Well, if we do, tomorrow, they're going to step on ours. And I hope, as a man, when we, she's coming, she's the gestures of contempt. The University of Washington, when a woman's upset her eyes dark and face turns sour and on the hips, scolding finger the side, the roller the eyes. And when estrogen kicks in, the word choice of contempt is incredible. But every woman will say, well, he should know, I don't mean it. Or he, I'm really trying to get a message. Yeah. But in our world, you just stepped on our air hose. So we are going to do that. So this makes sense. Makes sense. You know, loveandrespect.com is your website. Loveandrespect.com. And there's all sorts of tools like this. In fact, not only am I going to be awesome when we get done with this conversation, but I saw what for you. You already are awesome. But I said, well, we've done 48 years. We're, we're good. We think we're going to make a couple more. And so, but the other thing is, oh, you've got a 15 day thing email, seven emails help sharpen day plan, 15 day plan. You've also got the love and respect academy. I mean, an amazing amount of tools. And so I would just commend everybody to go to your site, loveandrespect.com. And pick this stuff up. Hey, this is Chris. Let me take a moment right in the middle of this great conversation to remind you how to get in touch with Paul and Christian men's network in the global fatherhood initiative. You can find all the resources for mentoring and fatherhood at cmin.min. That's the Christian men's network at cmin.min. Christian men's network does special events across America and around the world. You can find all the information at cmin.min. Click on events. We also have tremendous resources for churches with special discounts for groups on that website. Everything a church needs from A to Z to mentor and disciple men of all ages and backgrounds. Before we get back to the interview, please take the time to hit the subscribe button to help us continue to reach other men. Now let's get back to this powerful interview between Paul and Emerson Egrich. You know, Steve Arterburn told me one day he said, he said, internet searches. He said, the vast majority of women's internet searches are the narcissism of men. And I thought, well, that's fascinating. And I also thought all the crazy stuff that's on the internet. So when you said that, it triggered that. She saw it on the internet. He fits the profile of a man. Right. Right. Right. Right. But to be very guarded because experts like myself know how to communicate profiles and descriptors and then draw conclusions that because he's that way, therefore, he is this. There to be very cautious. Jesus Christ did not go around doing that. And this profile is deeply disturbing to me because it's it's they if this man would literally die for you, then he's not narcissistic. Now, that doesn't mean that he isn't independent. Jesus said, essentially, father and mother, he's independent and that there's an independent spirit, men are more independent. We're more separate. We're more distant. We will shut down. And if a woman concludes that if you love somebody, you're going to talk about all your feelings and he doesn't want to talk about that, then you could profile him as narcissistic and uncaring. And that is a misrepresentation and misinterpretation, I should say of who this man is. But so what's happening today and the culture of intimacy has become pink. So a woman feels hurt. He's hurtful. If she feels offended, he's offensive. And I'm saying that could be true. But we have to be very guarded here. He's not reacting to this situation like a woman. He's not saying, Oh, I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me? I didn't mean to say that. Can we talk about this for the next 30 minutes? He's not going to do that. And I always, and here's how we appeal to him. And Sarah is going to put me on this. Say, ladies, is this how you want your daughter-in-law to treat your son? Your son is going to be just like your husband. And that's when the light bulb comes on for many women. Sarah put me on this early in the conference. We say, ladies, we're talking about your sons here. And your sweet daughter-in-law is going to go profile him as narcissistic because he's just going to shut down on her. He's going to be like a deer in headlights. He's not going to eat, and you know that. You know that about your boy. Yeah, I'm telling you, I've seen this happen. Dr. Agerich, you're hitting something really strong because, you know, first of all, we like magic formulas. We don't like process. Just tell me three things to do. And I'll just do him right now. And then bam, solve it. Or give me a pill. And, you know, and so we love these little profiles because then we can put it in a box, take care of it, put it on a shelf, boom, done. And you're right, man, this is doing a ton of damage to men and to women because guys do the same thing. We're on the internet looking at stuff going, oh, hey, she's acting like this, acting like that. Oh, you know what? It says this. And too often, Emerson, what I see is guys are just selling their stuff. So they're creating little boxes and then here, buy all the stuff in my box. And it really isn't about advancing. First of all, the kingdom of heaven, number one, number two, it's not advancing the gift of marriage. And so now we live in a world in which there are more people living together than getting married in their 20s. We've got young men that wait the average age of young men getting married in America right now is 29. We've got 28% of the young men who are 30 years old still living in their parent's house. And you've got this emasculation, immaturity of men. What's your take on that, Emerson? What's your take right now on the culture of manhood? And particularly from the perspective of where we live in North America? Well, and we come in and I want to make a comment on what you said earlier on the profiling of our spouses. And what's fascinating to me is that I'm going to put out a list here of my spouse being narcissistic. And I'm going to tell them here all these things. Now why do we do that? Because we want to change them. Wow. And so but we do it in a way that let me tell you how bad you are. Really how this profile would suggest it's in concrete, never going to change. But I'm going to give it to you with the hope that you change. And one point I make is that we approach our spouses in negative ways with the hope that they're going to become positive. Wow. You know, it's kind of like we had this wish that 30 years into the marriage. One day our spouses are going to come running into the house saying, I had an epiphany. I had an epiphany. I got it. I now know why you've been negative for three decades. Why? I'm going to make me to be positive. How did I miss it? That's the whole profiling thing. I mean, it is and it's really sad. Jesus Christ had a Judas and he had a Peter and they there was a period where Peter denies him. So he's kind of in that Judas camp. But isn't it a sad day if we call Peter a Judas? Yes. If we stop the story right there and profile them. That's right. And so I am so grateful for my mother. I wasn't raising a Christian home. My mom and dad were not Christ followers. My mom came to Christ at age 53, dad at age 51. I had already come to Christ. So my ass and my whole family came to Christ. My freshman year wheat and I'd come to Christ two years earlier. They were watching me in the change. So I grew up in a non-Christian situation. But my mother, it was this dynamo woman. And even then she would say to me, like your daddy died in the 1918 flu that we now are very aware of. His daddy was 29. He died of the flu as a banker and your daddy was three months old. Your daddy doesn't know how to be a daddy. And she was very empathetic. But what I saw as my dad, my mom did not throw my dad under the bus. And that she believed in his deeper spirit even though my dad had issues. And I'm so grateful for that. They were separated. My mom, my dad, the attempt to distrangle their mother at one point. And then they divorced. They remarried. Then they separated her five years. We had some real trauma there. They changed later on. But my, I realized God did not do my dad as a Judas. A Judas is a Peter and he comes to Christ and has a tremendous conversion. And even my mother knew that though my dad had issues at certain times and she got out of harm's way, she knew that in the overarching scheme, that was not my dad's heart. My dad had basic good will. And she was able to extend empathy and she was instrumental in my dad coming to Christ. And so I see firsthand you don't subscribe to foolishness. You don't let somebody beat you up somehow. We're not talking about that. But we are saying, look, it's very important that we don't profile someone in the way that we're doing today. If that does not represent them and especially we're trying to do this to motivate them to change, it isn't going to work. So the question is how do we appeal to a person? You appeal to a man, for instance, you're an honorable man. And I know you would die from it. I don't kill you first, but you're an honorable man. And I need your strength right now. I need your help. I know you're the loving woman. You're a woman of virtue. I'm not you're so virtuous. I mean, you're a good woman. You're a godly woman. You're seeking Christ and prayer. But we need to talk about this right now because the way that you present this stuff to me, I just shut down on it and it's not fair to you. Can we come up with a different way of rules of engagement? Can we can we talk about these things differently? I know your heart. And if I had a stroke, you'd take care of me. You're a you're a you're an incredible woman. But I don't know what it is. It's not that I don't like you. I feel that you don't like me. Wow. That makes sense. Yeah, it does. And you know, again, part of that is, you know, you can't just get there overnight. You don't just sit down and go here. I've got something to talk to you about. It process is used that early as process. It's an incremental process. So where do you think men are today? How do you view the spirit of masculinity, let's say, North America? Well, I think you've got a better handle on it than I do and I'm deeply concerned about it. I think the issues that you just surfaced the softness and but I think that's what's happened with these cultural voices. You can't continue to tell men and even want to go on record that masculinity is toxic. Right. And at some point that our son's not begin to believe that. And that with the variant, very again, you see it, the very attempt, women want to adore a male. They want to look up to the male. They want that. They long for that. This is something within them. They want to believe in that man. They want they want to do this. It's within their heart. The princess wants the prince to rescue her. That theme and motif is never going to go away. All these movies out there, not the father rescuing the daughter. This is the new because you take out of the wife out of that equation because there's too much complexity sometimes with the wife. So they brought the daughter in now to be rescued. But again, that desire and the woman to be rescued and to look up to her father and so and so forth. That desires within every woman. And so there's no question about that. But when you keep beating down the man in order to motivate him to be that, then you're seeing the product of this that you just described earlier. And it's a sad commentary. Yeah, it is. Camille Paglia, who's one of the top feminist writers in America, wrote in the New York Times. It seems to me it was 2009. And the headline was, where are all the men? And it's sort of like, well, hello, you sort of beat them all up. And yet at the same time, she was concerned about where are, you know, because and again, it's this whole thing of men want to be valiant, men want to be warriors. But we've been told, like for instance, this coronavirus thing we're in the middle of, you might be listening to this after we've gotten through it. But men have been told, go home and sit down, shelter. And so now the trauma centers of America are packed where I live for the first time in 40 years, the women's trauma center in Terran County said we can't take any more people. In France, it's up 36% domestic violence. And in Phoenix, they've asked a couple churches to open up community centers as transition homes for women. So here's a man being told, go sit down, don't do anything about it. And yet within us is this solution driven desire to be valiant, do something. And men are just twisted over that. And the other things of what they're being told masculinity looks like. And so I, you know, this stuff that you're doing with love and respect and teaching us how to speak to each other and teaching, you know, if you will, the language that makes my heart come alive, you know, and for a man, sometimes it's just a touch. It's just, you know, like, like we would do with other guys kick him into butter or hit him or something. The guy, hey, what do you go man? Bam. You know, just there's little things like that. So nuance that means so much to a guy. It's, it's pretty amazing. But I would tell you that our culture has set guys up for a fall. And I think there's evil intention. I think the enemies trying to rip out the dreams of young men. You know, we talk about a warrior heart. We're going to talk about young black men in America. And there has been, I think an exceedingly great fight against black young men in America by the enemy trying to rip out who they are and what they were designed to be. And I think some of the greatest churches in the future will be in the United States will be like Tony Evans, men of color. And so the enemies trying to rip those guys out before they can go do damage to the enemy. And we've got to recognize this stuff, Emerson. And so I thank God for the fact that you're family. Now, now let me go back to one thing though, the crazy cycle. Now you talk about that in a family experience also, right? I wrote the book called Love Respect to the Family as well, dealing with that family crazy cycle. Exactly. So what do I do about that? So now I'm trying to get the marriage right. And then I've got my kids over there. I'm yelling at them to come in. I'm going to do a family Bible study. You guys get in here. Everybody get in here. And pretty soon I'm at war trying to do the right thing. How do we how do we navigate some of that? And I know this is there's longer conversations and you've got all these materials that help us do that. But give me a couple things. Yeah, I think that I could head towards. All right. Well, I think one point you made even about that single guy that's sitting there. Maybe, you know, who's not married yet and feeling like, wow, maybe I was sold a bill of goods here. It was one of the things that this message has done is caused men to get in tune with this root issue of honor respect. Yeah. At Riley had me come speak to the Miami Heat. He and I spent several hours talking about how men are motivated by honor. And and have to feel their sense of justice and honor. And when there isn't sense of justice and honor, there's going to be a mutiny of sorts. But what's happened is that I think a lot of men have lost touch with what that is that drives them most deeply. Yeah. And if you if you don't get in tune with that, then you're going to you're going to react to things that you're you're going to make up the reason that you're reacting. And what's also happened though is a man can't say your disrespect me because the response will be we you don't deserve the respect. You haven't earned respect. They don't feel in respect for you. And so what's happened to young men is they just shut down because it's been labeled as egotistical what they're giving sentiment to. So one of my challenges to the young man is don't don't be ashamed of that. That doesn't mean that you can tell everybody their disrespect over become unloving. But you've got to get in tune. First of all, I had a senator tell me that when he will listen to me speak, he said, for the first time in my life, I got in tune with what was driving me. Wow. I had another guy that went to Harvard and he said, there's only two people in my life that didn't like me. And I never knew why until I listen to you. It's because they dishonored me. They disrespect me. But I'd suppress this language because you're not supposed to feel bad. Women need our ESPET, but you men. No. So one, get in tune with that. And that's then leads to the segue into the comment in the home. We men are reacting. If you've got a first of all know that while I'm feeling disrespected. So then the question is, are they intending to be disrespectful? And we talk about without love, children react without respect. Could be that my child is feeling unloved. And I did something. And so they're reacting because they're insecure. Or they're just childishly irresponsible. You know, you know, they just, you know, are being kids. Exactly. Exactly. Right. I mean, you tell them not to throw the ball in the house. Okay. But now you come in and throw the ball that you, hey, don't throw any stones because you were doing it 35 years ago. You know what? We talk about are they feeling unloved? This is childish your responsibility. Or is this open to fines? And the open to fines is disrespectful. But we've got to decode because without love, they react without respect. And when we feel disrespected, we react without love. But we have to then figure that out. If they're being unloving, then I need to not take up offense over what I think is there intend to be disrespectful. Wow. When instead they're just sitting, sinking, sinking, seeking to send me a message that they need me to reassure them that I love them. You know, I, I still get in trouble. Now that I have grandchildren, you know, I, I still get in trouble about playing with the ball inside the house. This is true story, man. It just happened the other day with a basketball. And I'm showing by younger, one of the younger boys, you know, you dribble it like this. You know, I hear from the other room. Are you guys dribbling the ball? Which you can hear on our wood floors. And I yell back, no. So, you know, some of these things never leave us. But man, that's such a, those are, I love the way you make things real. And if you will, it's transportable because I can carry this into the next piece and next conversation. So I want to tell guys, they need to get a hold of love and respect for book, love and respect.com. You have tools, you have an academy, you have a lot of online things that guide courses, guys can take. And man, you know, I could talk to you for hours. I'm absolutely fascinated by what you do and how you understand these things and how you actually make it clear. And so I know there was, there's one episode, it's episode 15 that I haven't listened to yet. But just the title of your podcast says six statements that inflame a wife when she's already upset. And it's like, don't be that guy sort of moment. Don't do this. And I love those sorts of, those sorts of things. I think for Judy and I, the thing that really, well, first of all, you know, people say, you've been married 48 years. How do you do that? You go, well, you just do it. We were fully committed. There was, there's been iron sharpens iron moments. In fact, that's our scriptural basis for our marriage. Iron sharpens iron. And yet, at the same time, it was like, we're committed. We're just committed. There's no other option. We don't work this thing out. But one of the things that we had to learn over, and it was like, Emerson, I thank God for your ministry because when we first got married, we didn't have a lot of this sort of stuff. It was more like, just get your life right with God. You know, or go to the Wednesday night prayer meeting and pray it out. And, and we had to learn to forgive each other. And we had to learn to forgive with humility and actually mean it rather than, I forgive you thanks. Yeah, I forgive you too, by you know, I actually work that thing out, you know, those, those dark moments. And I think that's an energizing thing for a man when he actually does that. The power of the life of Jesus Christ was his ability to say, I forgive you. You know, that strength, which set us free. So thank you for the conversation. And I love the way you present things, man. And obviously my wife does too. She's been listening. Well, in closing, yeah, I mean, in closing, what you triggered there on the forgiveness issue, and there's a component of forgiving each other for moral things. Right. But quite often, she needs to forgive him for going quiet with drawing, but forgiving knowing this that he was trying to do the honorable thing, not the unloving thing. And so too, when she criticizes and complains, she's trying to do the caring thing, not the not the contemptuous thing. And part of the problem is, when we take up offense toward a goodwill person who he was trying to do the honorable thing, he wasn't trying to be unloving. She's trying to do the loving thing. She's not trying to be disrespectful, but we take up offense and have a resentful, bitter spirit toward him. And one of the things that I coach that in these situations really forgiveness is far easier than we think. Once we realize that they didn't have ill will, we did not marry Hitler's distant cousin. It's much easier to forget. People are not the enemy. The enemy is the enemy. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate this. Yeah, we just, you know, my art prayer for you, then, Dr. Edgaritch and your family and your wife, Sarah, is that every place you put your feet will be holy ground, everything your hands touchable prosper. And that the father will keep you deep within the favor of his love and really pray that as you do these things in the future that greater millions of more people on your Facebook, greater foundation, platforms, you're already speaking to the NFL NBA, military, West Point, all these things. And I just believe this thing's going to continue on because what you're doing is so important. So thank you for living through the crazy cycle. Yes. No, thank you, Paul. You're kind. Thank you. God bless you, brother. Thank you. You too. All right. Bye. Bye. Love and respect. Okay. I have to change my decision. Yeah. Can I have both? Can I have both? Well, that's the point. And I think that's what he brought out in this is that it really is both. And because a woman wants to be respected. And yet, you know, we find that the Bible says for, you know, for a man to love his wife and for a woman to respect her husband. Yes. And so I thought it was fascinating way he brought that out and the whole piece of how we talked to each other. Yes. The words we use. This whole, you know, everything we talked about at the top was was really powerful. And so let me mention again, their website is at. Here we go. Love and respect. That makes sense. Love and respect.com. I started a minute ago during the interview and the band lost it out of my brain. You know, that's what happens sometimes. See, but another fascinating thing that I love about this, you know, and him focusing on love and respect is the thing that he's really teaching on is the fullness of us. Yeah. Teaching us how to be full people. And I think that oftentimes, you know, we lean on, well, I'm strong in this area. Okay. But you can't, you know, I love an Amos. I believe it's three three. It says, how can two walk together unless they agree? And when you hit on that aspect of wholeness and fullness, that's when, you know, your life has changed, but not only your life, the people around you's lives are changed. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No question. You know, the testimonies. He's on the website. Love and respect.com. He's got all kinds of testimonies. People's lives have been changed. Marriage has changed. I'm telling you, when you know, when you change a marriage, it changes the future of the kids. Yes. You know, and so I think these are the kinds of things we have to really pay attention to. And you mentioned it at the mid-break. Make sure for our friends go on, or if you're need it, not our friend. Yes. Right. If you're just a neighbor and not go on the podcast here. Yes. And click subscribe. Right. And then also write something nice. Yes. Write to your friend, Chris. And here's the thing. If you can't say something nice, remember what your mom taught you. Don't say it at all. Don't say it at all. Come on, man. Otherwise, you know, I'm a, oh, you can send her secretly send it to Chris. You know, I'll pray for you, Chris. I won't tell Paul. Yeah. Dude, this thing sucks. I don't know, why I wasn't listening to the whole day. Like, if you thought it was that bad, why'd you stick around 45 minutes? Yes. Right. Anyway, great stuff, Chris. And really, really love the guys we've had on. And coming up Paul Kaufland, Irgun Mathesias, Javan Ruff, the Congressman, Jody Heiss. Yes. And having all the north on here was a great interview. And John Tyson, man, that thing rocked. Wow. Yeah. So the Brave Men podcast is just, has really just exploded. Yeah. You know, guys all over. I can't go anywhere without somebody coming up and going, Hey, man, I listen to you on the way to work or I listen to you, you know, late at night before I go to sleep. That kind of stuff. Like, man, that's, that's just fantastic. Yeah. And I love, you know, just watching, you know, how the Holy Spirit is breathing on this. Yeah. No question, man. It's awesome. It's awesome. Hey, thank you for being with us on Brave Men today. And this podcast isn't about just looking at Brave Men. It's about us becoming Brave Men because what you become is what God's most involved in. So thanks for being with us today on Brave Men. You've just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian Men's Network. Connect with Paul at cmn.man or write to him at Paul at cmn.man.