The Art of Understanding Your Mate
By Cecil Osborne, D.d
Undated
TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR WIVES
1. Learn the Real Meaning of Love.
2. Give Up Your Dreams of a "Perfect Marriage" and work Toward a "Good Marriage."
3. Discover Your Husband's Personal, Unique Needs and Try to Meet Them.
4. Abandon All Dependency Upon Your Parents and All Criticism of His Relatives.
5. Give Praise and Appreciation Instead of Seeking It.
6. Surrender Possessiveness and Jealousy.
7. Greet Your Husband With Affection Instead of Complaints or Demands.
8. Abandon All Hope of Changing Your Husband Through Criticism or Attack.
9. Outgrow the Princess Syndrome.
10. Pray for Patience.
TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR HUSBANDS
1. Treat Your Wife With Strength and Gentleness.
2. Give Ample Praise and Reassurance.
3. Define the Areas of Responsibility.
4. Avoid Criticism.
5. Remember the Importance of "Little Things."
6. Recognize Her Need for Togetherness.
7. Give Her a Sense of Security.
8. Recognize the Validity of Her Moods.
9. Cooperate With Her in Every Effort to Improve Your Marriage.
10. Discover Her Particular, Individual Needs and Try to Meet Them.
TYPES OF NEUROTIC HUSBANDS TYPES OF NEUROTIC WIVES
1. The explosive, argumentative, domineering husband.
2. The compulsive husband.
3. The uncommunicative husband.
4. The child husband.
5. The hypochondriac husband.
6. The passive, silent passive, or retreating husband.
7. The playboy husband.
8. The neurotic tightwad.
1. The overly-dominant wife.
2. The narcissistic woman.
3. The adult-infantile wife.
4. The masculine-protest wife.
5. The martyr-wife.
6. The passive-aggressive wife.
7. The jealous-possessive wife.
8. The depressed wife.
BASIC ELEMENTAL NEEDS CHANGE THESE TO READ:
1. We want, consciously or unconsciously, to have all of our needs met.
2. We want to control or change those about us so that they will meet your needs.
3. We all yearn for unconditional love.
1. Instead of demanding that all of my needs be met, I will seek to meet the valid needs of my marriage partner.
2. Rather than trying to change others, I will recognize that I cannot change anyone else. I can change only myself, and when I change, others tend - in time - to change in relation to me.
3. Instead of expecting unconditional love, I will face the fact that no one can give this kind of limitless love consistently [except God]. I will give love rather than demanding or expecting it, believing that love begets love.
from the book, THE ART OF UNDERSTANDING YOUR MATE , by Cecil G. Osborne, D.D.Scriptural Counsel:
"And He [Jesus] answered and said to them, 'Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning "made them male and female," and said, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh"? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.'"
Matthew 19:4-6
"And above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins."
1 Peter 4:8
"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us."
Romans 5:1-6
"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails..."
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
J.B.W.
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