"Your wife is tenderhearted and easily agitated. She feels your harshness of discipline, and it leads her to the opposite extreme. She seeks to counteract your severity, and you charge this as a great lack in her of doing her duty and controlling her children. You think her indulgent, overfond, and tender. You cannot help her in this respect until you correct yourself and manifest that parental tenderness which you should in your family. It is your wrong management which leads your wife to be lax in her discipline. You must have your nature softened. You need to be refined by the influences of the Spirit of God. You need a thorough conversion; then you can work from the right standpoint. You need to let love into your soul and permit it to occupy the place of self- dignity; self must die. 2T 260.1"
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;"
The EGW passage directly applies the principle of husbands loving their wives, as stated in Ephesians 5:25. It connects the husband's harshness to the wife's reaction and emphasizes the need for love and tenderness in the relationship.