Meet Joy Eggerichs: Love and Respect Now

Joy is an international speaker and the director of Love and Respect Now. Her mission is to help 18-35 year olds - whether single, dating, married or divorced - have the tools to create healthier relationships, based on the principles outlined in her father's book, Love and Respect.

Why did you start Love and Respect Now?

When I was 25 years old I went through a terrible break-up, learning the hard way the heartache that can come from being in a bad relationship. I realized that I wanted to help men and women understand that they can be empowered and equipped to understand relationships better when they embrace the dynamic of love and respect between men and women.

Love and Respect Now continues the discussion in my parents book Love and Respect: The Love She Most Desires, The Respect He Desperately Needs.  After learning the Love and Respect content, so many people have asked my parents “Why didn’t anyone tell me this stuff?” I began Love and Respect Now in the hope that I would serve as a conduit for this message, so my generation won't have to ask the same question 20 years from now.

How would you describe the dynamics of Love and Respect within a romantic relationship?

The two ingredients that make a relationship work, or not work, are love and respect. Not only have we found this to be true, but very reputable studies done at the University of Washington studying couples for twenty years also says that Love and Respect are the two key ingredients- and they get gender specific.

But here's the thing to remember: we all need love and respect equally, but within conflict situations between people in intimate relationships, most women leave the conflict feeling unloved and most men leave the conflict feeling disrespected. In fact, at Love and Respect we have surveyed over 7,000 people and 83% of men said they feel disrespected in conflict and 72% of women said they feel unloved. Same people having the same conflicts. Different filter of feelings.

How does understanding this dynamic empower women?

Men shut down when they feel disrespected, depriving women of the unconditional love she desires. Taking the time to understanding the deep male desire for respect will empower women to seek to show him respect and allow him to reciprocate with the assurance of unconditional love that she craves.

What are some tips to help a woman show respect in a conflict situation?

It’s important to remember that you don’t have to be a submissive doormat who keeps her mouth shut to somehow convey respect. That's the wrong definition of showing respect. It’s important to express your thoughts and feeling during conflict, but like most things, its all in the wording. Here are some helpful templates to express yourself while also showing your man respect:

1. “I know this is not how you want to come across __but...”

2. “That felt really __, did I come across in a way that felt disrespectful to you....”

How would you describe the landscape of romance today?

We are a generation that truly longs for healthy married relationships, but we are more scared to get married than ever before. We have fears because so many of our parent's marriages have suffered from affairs or divorce, and we know the repercussions of being a child impacted by divorce. We also get married later and date longer, which means more serious relationships have ended, so we’re afraid that our marriages will end too. It paralyzes us from being honest about what I know so many of us desire.

What is The Illumination Project?

The Illumination Project is a 6-week study, where people across generations can have conversations with each other and grow in wisdom. I filmed a live dialogue with my father Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, author of Love and Respect. In our conversation I ask him questions about life, love, singleness, dating and marriage. Since it was filmed in Portland, Oregon, where I live, I also had a number of my artist friends involved because I think we can learn so much through those mediums. Plus my friends are just awesome. The hope is that people my age and the age of my father will get together and let this video series be a catalyst to us learning from each other and diving into these topics. I think our generation hungers to hash this all out with older people but our autonomous culture can sometimes make that difficult. Hopefully just pushing play will help.