Crazy Cycle CD (10 Pack)

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.

As a husband, if you can grasp that you don’t always have to solve your wife’s problems, you will take a giant step toward showing her empathy and understanding.

Your position in Christ is what counts, not your less-than-perfect performance.

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

No matter what your struggle- criticism, constant conflict, sex, money, parenting, harsh words- learning to communicate the Love and Respect way can help you make crucial changes and build the kind of relationship that God blesses.

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

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

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.

Unconditional love or respect is never wasted. Hang onto this promise: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

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

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.

A marriage relationship will be energized when couples learn how to motivate each other God’s way.

Whose voice are you listening to: Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

Unconditional respect is as powerful to him as unconditional love is to her.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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.

How we react to a situation reveals more about us than about the other person.

Wives, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your husband not only back to you, but to God. Husbands, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your wife not only back to you, but to God. (1 Corinthians 7:16)

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!)

Words of Love or Respect must uplift your spouse, edifying- never manipulating him or her.

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

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

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

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

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

Avoid like the plague trying to punish each other as a means of “motivation.” Christ-followers instinctively know that this destroys any opportunity to act out of reverence for Christ. In all marital issues, love and reverence for Christ must be our primary motivation.

You speak lovingly or respectfully no matter how your spouse may speak to you in return. Your spouse is not the reason--good or bad--why you speak unconditional words of love or respect. God is the reason, and as you depend on Him, you will become increasingly able to speak lovingly and respectfully to your spouse.

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

We have discovered that as women motivate their man God’s way, men are energized to love them better. It doesn’t matter if your marriage is good or seems like there is no hope. We have seen God move in powerful ways even when things looked hopeless.

Parenting is a faith venture. As we parent “unto Christ” we reap God’s reward, “knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord” (Eph. 6:8 NKJV)

A man has a natural, inborn desire to go out and “conquer” the challenges of his world – to work and achieve.

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

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.”

The heart of my communication means the other person cannot get my heart to be unkind, unloving, or disrespectful. Instead, I have made a decision about who I will be independent of the other person. I won’t blame my unkindness on someone else.

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.

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

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

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.

“Respect is a man’s deepest value. I have had numerous men tell me, ‘I would rather live with a wife who respected me but did not love me than live with a wife who loved me but did not respect me.’ These men are not saying that they are indifferent to love. They know they need love, but they need to feel respected even more than they need to feel loved.“

Though the end can be worthy (to be loved and respected), when each uses unholy means (unloving and disrespectful words and actions), it will not achieve those ends. We must treat others as we expect them to treat us. To deny this makes us arrogant or fools, or both.

[Women], your self-love cannot be derived from your husband’s love. It can affect it, but it does not determine it.

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

No matter how difficult your spouse may be at the moment, your spouse does not have control over your reaction; you do. You may be experiencing disappointment, frustration or anger, but you always have a choice. A wife can choose to be disrespectful or respectful. A husband can choose to be unloving or loving.

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

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

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

If husbands and wives are to understand the Love and Respect Connection, they must realize that they communicate in code. And the problem is, they don’t know how to decipher the messages they send to one another.

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.

Often both spouses have goodwill but are not deciphering each other’s code. She criticizes out of love, but he “hears” only disrespect. He distances himself to prevent feelings from escalating, which is the honorable thing to do, but she “sees” only his failure to be loving!

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

She’s not wrong for not being male. He is not wrong for not being female. When you put pink and blue together, you get purple, the color of royalty; the color of God. Together, a husband and wife reflect God’s image.

You have to become proactive, rather than just trying to stop the reactive.

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.

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

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

Thank the Lord for all the trouble-free moments in which you and your spouse enjoy Him, each other, your family, your ministry and life as a whole. Ask Him for the strength to accept your measure of trouble, and the wisdom to deal with the annoyances and irritations by loving and respecting each other with new commitment. (You may also want to pray about troubles at work, at church, with the children…) “But those who marry will have trouble in this life” (1 Corinthians 7:28)

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

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

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.

Positive changes flood a relationship immediately when both husband and wife cancel the blame game!

It’s true that women have intuition and that men should listen to them. It’s also true that women have blind spots and need the insight of their husbands.

Unconditional respect means we confront their wrongdoings respectfully. We do not become uncivil because they are. Who they fail to be does not determine who we will be.

Your spouse can have a need that you don’t have and that’s okay.

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.

Pink and Blue perceptions not only affect seeing, they affect hearing as well. Women hear with pink hearing aids and men hear with blue hearing aids. Even more important to understand as you and your spouse seek to gain better communication, you can hear the very same words, but each of you will hear different messages.

Our research shows that couples who pray together are more apt to reap all kinds of benefits, including better and more frequent communication, going on “dates” more frequently and having sex more frequently.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

A major step toward a happy marriage is accepting differences and working them out with love and respect.

We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

Life is too short to fuss and fret over trivial irritations.

To not forgive is to shoot yourself in the foot and put extra gas in the Crazy Cycle.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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.

Stay the course regardless of the child’s respect and obedience. This is the Family Rewarded Cycle: a parents love unto Christ regardless of the child.

To stay the course in speaking words of Love and Respect, keep your heart in Scripture, trusting in and talking about His promises to help you.

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

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

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

Most marriages will succeed when obeying the command to Love and Respect.

The moment we cry to Him for help, He is already pleased. He gives us strength to love our children.

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.

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)

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

Being friendly to her man is one of the most effective things a woman can do to strengthen her marriage.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

Optimism or pessimism? It is always a choice, no matter what your natural temperament.

Your spouse may meet many of your needs, but your deepest dependency should be on your Lord.

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!

The parent-child relationship is as easy, and as difficult, as love and respect.

When others do not respond to our communication, we need to look first at our communication style. Is the other person incapable of hearing what we have to say? Or are we abrupt, brusque, and curt?

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’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?

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

Mutual understanding, not communication, is the key to a healthy marriage relationship.

A husband may deserve contempt, but that doesn’t win him any more than harshness and anger wins the heart of a woman.