Crazy Cycle CD (10 Pack)

When a husband feels disrespected, he has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel unloving to his wife. (Perhaps the command to love was given to him precisely for this reason!) When a wife feels unloved, she has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to her husband. (Perhaps the command to respect was given to her precisely for this reason!)

Love and Respect is a faith venture, not a formula.

When confronting your spouse, attack the behavior, not the person.

Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean the other person is offensive.

If you want your husband to express appreciation for your attempts to be respectful, you must speak thankfully when he tries to be loving.

Let the Lord change you, but don’t try to change each other.

We are equal but we are not the same.

Share what God is saying to your heart, not what you think He needs to say to your mate.

Feeling unloved, a wife gets defensive and acts offensively without respect. Feeling disrespected, a husband gets defensive and acts offensively without love.

Trust God when the “why’s” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

If a husband chooses to be a peacemaker--taking the needs and concerns of his wife totally into account during any kind of argument or conflict--his wife will be motivated in turn to respond to his authority during stalemates.

Research shows that 70% of the couples who were extremely unhappy in their marriage, but hung in there and worked through the tough time, identified themselves as being very happy five years later.

Your marriage is really a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for your Lord.

She’ll feel at peace with you when you let her vent your frustrations and hurts and don’t get angry and close her off.

There is a plan to parent God’s way, even when our children may seek to go their own way at time. The secret is to follow this plan regardless. When you do, I believe you succeed in His eyes.

Your hunger for God can create an appetite in your children.

We blame people for the bad things we do, but take credit for the good things we do.

Here is the secret to marriage that every couple seeks and yet few find: Unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It’s the secret that will help you achieve a brand new level of intimacy.

Often the apparent issue isn’t the real issue; the real issue is always a matter of love or respect.

The Crazy Cycle is, indeed, “the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25).

When a wife insists that her husband earn her respect, she puts him in a lose-lose situation.

When a wife feels unloved, it can be such a shock to her heart that she is oblivious to her disrespectful reactions toward her husband, though any man watching could see it plainly.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

No one can really practice Love and Respect unless he or she does it as unto Jesus Christ.

Women give a report to build rapport. Men bond through shoulder-to-shoulder activities without talking.

Holding back your love or respect will just keep the Crazy Cycle spinning away, but being mature and making the first move could slow it down.

You may believe that the careless, unloving or disrespectful words you speak are because your spouse is causing you to speak this way, but Jesus says that it is coming out of your heart.

Always remember that Pink and Blue have different wiring, different preferences. Assume your spouse has goodwill toward you, no matter what. Both of you can be right, while being different.

“Living happily ever after” means knowing how to deal with the imperfect parts of life.

When you look to God and His Word as your ultimate source of significance and security, you don’t demand that your spouse take that role in your life. And as you draw strength from the Lord individually, He draws you closer together as a couple.

Your words reveal your heart.

You must “ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves.”

It’s so easy to dismiss our spouse as childish because we don’t have the same vulnerabilities they do.

The key to motivating another person is meeting their deepest need, especially during conflict.

Thank the Lord for the goodwill each of you has toward the other. Ask Him for strength to give each other the benefit of the doubt during moments when someone’s goodwill seems to be lacking. “He who seeks good finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it.” (Proverbs 11:27)

We can all have moments of anger, but this does not mean we have to lose control and sin.

As a wife, if you can start to understand how important your husband’s work is to him, you will take a giant step toward communicating respect and honor, two things that he values even more than your love.

God’s commands are there to help us, not to hinder us or hold us back as male and female.

Although the Crazy Cycle is not what God intends for any marriage, all couples get on it at times from one degree to another.

When you look to God and His Word as your ultimate source of significance and security, you don’t demand that your spouse take that role in your life. And as you draw strength from the Lord individually, He draws you closer together as a couple.

God rewards your obedience to love and respect, even if your spouse does not respond!

If you are seeking positive change in your marriage, you will need to make a positive change in your attitude and actions.

Your wife feels you are open with her when you discuss financial concerns, possible job changes or ideas for your future.

When sorting out how to slow down the Crazy Cycle, it helps to remember that men are commanded to love because they don’t love naturally, and on the other side, women are commanded to respect because they don’t respect naturally.

We all need to wrestle with the spiritual truth that God is good. If you don’t believe God is good, you won’t trust His word. If you don’t trust His word, you will find excuses to ignore His commands.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

Thank God for joining you together and for allowing you to trust Him to help you, whatever the issue. God is there for you and expects you to look to Him to keep you together as a team, so ask Him for His help in the smallest of concerns. “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (Matthew 19:6)

Unconditional respect, like unconditional love, is all about how one sounds (tone of voice and word choice) and appears (facial expressions and physical actions).

His love motivates her respect. Her respect motivates his love.

Your husband knows you appreciate his desire to protect and provide when you praise his commitment to provide for you. You empathize when he reveals his male mindset about position, status, or rank at work.

Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.

Be friendly. Be friendly. Be friendly. Watch what happens.

You’re the only person in the world who can meet your spouse’s deepest need for love and respect. After all, you alone are married to your spouse.

You have two ears and one mouth; use them proportionately.

Christian maturity involves a lot of things, but surely it includes knowing how to process your anger.

Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.

When you come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

Your spouse can affect you, but your spouse does not control you.

Men are solution oriented, they love to solve problems. They want to be helpful.

It’s hard to realize that we would never act around our business associates the way we act around our spouse.

When evil comes at you, you’re the one who makes the choice of whether or not it is going to go into you.

Respect for the husband is just as important as love for the wife.

Do you bow to the influence of Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

A most significant point of this book is this: If what we think is true, kind, necessary, and clear, we need to have the courage to hit send. This isn’t about refraining from speaking; this is about speaking.

When parents genuinely trust and follow the Lord and His ways, their faith spills over onto the children.

We have different vulnerabilities. We can pass judgment on one another all day long or we can say God made us different and that’s ok.

God is not trying to trick you or mess with you. Trust that He wants to reveal Himself to you just as much as He wants to reveal Himself to the world.

A wife has one driving need--to feel loved. When that need is met she is happy. A husband has one driving need--to feel respected. When that need is met he is happy. When either of these needs isn’t met, things get crazy. Love and Respect reveals why spouses react negatively to each other, and how they can deal with such conflict quickly, easily and biblically.

Words of Love and Respect must include thankfulness spoken to or about your spouse; don’t fixate on weaknesses and faults.

Your wife will feel esteemed when you speak highly of her in front of others.

When we feel crippling discouragement by the sinful choices and outcomes of our kids, we must not let this permanently deter us from parenting God’s way.

Clarifying is what you do before you step on your mate’s air hose and deflate his or her spirit. For example, you are having a typical conversation, but you can tell there is a misunderstanding. One of you isn’t being clear or isn’t hearing correctly. Then and there you clarify the misunderstanding before your spouse’s spirit deflates. You lovingly or respectfully clarify matters so that your spouse will not feel unloved or disrespected. The reason you take pains to clarify a seemingly small matter is to prevent the situation from becoming a love and respect issue that needs decoding. Clarifying is what you do to stay off the Crazy Cycle and keep positive, energetic feelings flowing between the two of you, to keep yourselves on the Energizing Cycle.

Your spouse deserves the truth from you. Do your best to tell it with love and respect.

When one of you makes a mistake, control any anger you may feel and trust God completely, no matter what happens.

Thank the Lord that in the very beginning He created them male and female – Blue and Pink. Ask Him for patience and ever-growing understanding of how men and women see and hear differently. “He created them male and female, and He blessed them.” (Genesis 5:2)

Knowing my spouse will not be able to love or respect me perfectly, I commit to having a forgiving spirit so that I may never speak hatefully or contemptuously.

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

With a better understanding of God’s promises, you will be on your way to a renewed mind and a changed life.

You can be right but wrong at the top of your voice.

When you’re truly Christ-centered, instead of child-centered, you will be a more effective parent in the long run.

Fight like a loving man and a respectful woman. Fight fair.

When you love or respect unconditionally regardless of the outcome, you are following God and His will for you.

When a husband chooses to come across lovingly even though he feels disrespected, he can prevent the Crazy Cycle from spinning and possibly getting out of control.

It is crucial for a husband and wife to see that neither one is wrong, but both of them are very different--in body function, outlook and perspective.

[Husbands] as the church places her burdens on Christ, so a woman needs to place her burdens on her husband. When she shares with you, don’t assume she is asking you to solve the problem. Ask your wife, “Do you want a solution or a listening ear?”

The Lord made women (Pink) and men (Blue) with differences, and He expects us to recognize and deal with those differences in a loving and respectful way.

Mutual submission is the only way to live fairly together with mutual authority.

I have concluded that those of us in the church who believe we have the Truth are not using the whole truth. A crucial part of God’s Word has been completely ignored, or perhaps simply gone unnoticed, when it has been there right under our noses the whole time! Many Christian spouses know Ephesians 5:33 and can at least paraphrase it. The Apostle Paul tells husbands to love their wives as much as they love themselves, and wives are to respect their husbands. But is anyone really listening? Perhaps the first step to better communication between husband and wife is to hear what God’s Word clearly says. --Emerson

As you pray together, you will truly learn to love and respect together.

A wife has one driving need: to feel loved. When that need is met, she is happy. A husband has one driving need: to feel respected. When that need is met, he is happy. When either of these needs isn’t met, things get crazy with conflict.

When we speak before we think, we widen the chances the other person(s) will be notably hurt, frustrated, confused, angry, fearful, or offended by something we’ve communicated.

God’s commands are not burdensome, but are given to us to spare us from more pain. Why would God command you to do something that doesn’t work?

We get on the Crazy Cycle because without love a wife reacts without respect, and without respect a husband reacts without love.

So I encourage every husband and wife to commit to the Jesus Way of Talking. Instead of allowing the stress of the situation to control you, you can say to yourself, “Because I love the Lord and I know that He rewards every good word, I am going to be truthful even if my spouse is not. I will also be uplifting, forgiving, thankful and scriptural in my speech because my ultimate goal is to please the Lord. Whatever my spouse’s weaknesses or bad habits might be, I will not let them cause me to sin with my lips.”

We fool ourselves into thinking the other person causes us to be the way we are. They really don’t! But if we lock into that idea, we become helpless, hopeless victims.

[Husbands] the most powerful weapons you have are your ears. Just listen to your wife, and she is much more likely to feel understood.

Being a person who communicates what is true frequently demands tact, and at times it can feel like sidestepping land mines. It takes work to be both truthful and tactful.

The Love and Respect message is not about a husband earning his wife’s respect by being more loving any more than it is about a wife earning her husband’s love by being more respectful. Always love or respect is given unconditionally according to God’s commands.

God designed the woman to love. He’s not going to command her to agape her husband when He created her to do that in the first place. God is not into redundancy.

At the very bottom of things, in every case and in every conversation, you can do your marriage a huge favor by assuming she is seeking to feel loved or he is seeking to feel respected and give your spouse some grace!