In our modern world, relationships are often viewed as transactional. It is a “quid pro quo” arrangement—I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Even when we stand at the altar, the traditional vows we recite often carry an implicit assumption of reciprocity.

“I take thee to be my wedded spouse, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.”

These are specific promises and guarantees. The unspoken assumption is that if these basic promises are broken—if you stop cherishing me, or if the “worse” becomes too much—then the contract is void. But the Bible teaches that true love must transcend transaction.

The Standard for Men: Unconditional Love

Paul raises the stakes impossibly high in Ephesians 5:25-28 (NIV):

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

This is the reminder for husbands to be unconditional in their love. A friend once told me that we can measure our capacity for this kind of love by inserting our own name in place of the word “love” when reading 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

Try it. Read this aloud:

[Your Name] is patient, [Your Name] is kind, [Your Name] is not jealous; [Your Name] does not brag, [Your Name] is not arrogant. [Your Name] does not act disgracefully, [Your Name] does not seek its own benefit; [Your Name] is not provoked, [Your Name] does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, [Your Name] does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but [Your Name] rejoices with the truth; [Your Name] keeps every confidence, [Your Name] believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [Your Name] never fails.

If we can achieve this, we have transcended the transactional to love like God loves—without conditions.

The Standard for Women: Unconditional Respect

However, Paul points out another truth in that scripture that often goes unnoticed. In Ephesians 5:33, he writes:

“However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

Similarly to the command for the husband to LOVE without receiving anything in return, Paul commands the wife to RESPECT the husband without receiving anything in return.

If the man is bound to unconditional love, the wife is equally bound to unconditional respect. The husband is to love even when he finds his wife unlovable at times. The wife is to respect even when the husband is not respectable at times.

The Clash of Natures

John Gray famously wrote that Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Men and women are often polar opposites. It is somewhat shocking that God would mandate marriage between the two most polarizing creations in all of existence—the man and the woman.

Many writers, from Gray to Deborah Tannen, have chronicled the stark differences that cause conflict between genders. But to drive the wedge further, the Bible commands us to act in a way that is contrary to our gender-based natures.

Men naturally struggle with emotion, vulnerability, and connection. And yet, the Bible tells men to pursue this emotional, sacrificial love unconditionally.

Women, conversely, often struggle to respect their husbands. While respect is viewed by the world as something that is earned, the Bible pushes this further for Christian women, suggesting a posture of respect that is not dependent on the husband’s performance.

Why Respect is Hard

The command to respect is difficult because, frankly, men often fail to act respectably. Modern commentary highlights several key areas where men lose the respect of their wives:

• Lack of Integrity & Follow-Through: When a husband’s words don’t match his actions—such as promising to change but failing to do so—trust erodes. This makes a woman feel he is not authentic or reliable.
• Emotional Neglect: Women often crave empathy and connection, but men frequently offer only solutions. This dynamic can make a wife feel unseen and create significant distance.
• Avoiding Responsibility: If a wife feels she is carrying the household burden alone, a husband’s “busyness” can appear as laziness. This perception leads quickly to disrespect.
• Feeling Undervalued: A lack of appreciation, infidelity, or constant criticism (especially in front of the children) signals a lack of respect from him, which breeds a lack of respect for him.
• Lack of Drive or Purpose: A man seeming to lack direction or stability can make a woman feel unsafe, a major killer of respect.
• Cultural Influences: We cannot ignore the intake of media. Negative portrayals of men in media can normalize complaining about and devaluing husbands.

The Redemptive Power of the Covenant

When a husband lacks drive, lacks integrity, or neglects connection, the natural, “transactional” response is to withhold respect. But God calls us to the supernatural. Peter doubles down on this in 1 Peter 3, suggesting that an unbelieving husband might actually be won over to the faith not by words, but by the purity and reverence—the unconditional respect—of his wife.

This is the mystery of the marriage covenant. We are called to give what we do not necessarily receive. Husbands are to pour out love on the unlovable days; wives are to pour out respect on the unrespectable days. In doing so, we stop mirroring the world’s transactions and start mirroring Christ.