“I’m Right and My Spouse Is Wrong, So It’s Not My Job to Get Us Off the Crazy Cycle!” - Part 1

Long ago I discovered a disheartening and detrimental pattern that drains a married couple of the positive vitality they experienced earlier in their relationship, and still long to experience now, when they do not apply a specific scripture to their marriage. 

This scripture is Ephesians 5:33, where God commands a husband to love his wife and a wife to respect her husband. 

What I unearthed is what happens when a husband is unloving and a wife is disrespectful—they jump on what I call the Crazy Cycle. Without love, a wife reacts without respect; without respect, a husband reacts without love. And on and on the cycle spins, because neither is receiving from the other what their heart most dearly desires.

When love is absent, a wife’s natural reaction lacks respect, and when respect is missing, a husband’s instinctive reaction lacks love. These negative reactions occur ad nauseam when a wife feels unloved, and a husband feels disrespected.

The Challenge of Perspective and Blame

This raises a question worthy of discussion. Obviously a husband does not like feeling disrespected, nor is it his desire to be unloving toward his wife. Similarly, a wife does not enjoy feeling unloved, nor did she wake up that morning intending to be disrespectful toward her husband. If this is the case for 99 percent of couples—and I believe it is—why then do they often find it so challenging to jump off the Crazy Cycle earlier? Why do they allow it to spin for as long as it often does?

Because each sees themselves as pretty much right and the other pretty much wrong. They may attempt to be humble about it—“I don’t want to be right, I just am. I don’t want my spouse to be wrong, they just are”—nevertheless, they conclude they are in the right, therefore they have the right to act as they do. 

Levels of "Proof"

A wife says, “He’s unloving and needs to be loving, like I am a caring woman.” A husband utters, “She’s disrespectful and needs to be respectful, like I am an honorable man.”

This Crazy Cycle can perpetuate due to our belief that our spouse triggered the cycle of negativity by failing to be loving and respectful. “If only they’d recognize and confess this,” we think to ourselves. Not only did they start the Crazy Cycle, but they are also keeping it spinning. We, on the other hand, are innocent victims defensively reacting not only to guard ourselves from more hurt but to awaken and motivate our spouse to stop and to change. 

She states, “He is wrong for being unloving and feeling disrespected (since I love him, and think of his concerns constantly). I am right about him being unloving and seeing disrespect where no disrespect was intended. And, I am right about this marriage needing him to be more loving and far less focused on him being respected, which is egotistical, so we can be happier.”

This mindset or belief results in a wife seeing only her pink side of the equation, not her husband’s blue side. Unfortunately, she thinks she knows what he feels and why he behaves as he does. As a blue male, he’s unloving and shouldn’t feel disrespected. 

He thinks, “She is wrong for being disrespectful and feeling unloved (since I protect her, would die for her, and provide for her). I am right about her being disrespectful and seeing a lack of love where no lack of love was intended. And, I am right about this marriage needing her to be more respectful and far less focused on her being loved, which is too prima donna, so we can be happier.”

He fixates only on his blue view and sentiments, not what his wife feels. Lamentably, he is persuaded he knows what she feels toward him, and why. As a pink female, she’s disrespectful and shouldn’t feel unloved.

Let me insert, there is truth here. Sometimes a husband is unloving and shouldn’t feel disrespected, and a wife is disrespectful and shouldn’t feel unloved. But the point I seek to make here is that some make this assertion more than 80 percent of the time, including in the gray areas of life (i.e., areas that are not a matter of morality, such as whether they will attend a traditional or contemporary worship service). Judgments like these in the gray areas are way too extreme.

Why then do so many make this honest mistake in perspective? Because we are like a fish in water that does not know it is in water. Pink does not naturally see what blue sees, so she judges things based on her pink standard of what is right. Blue does not naturally see what pink sees, so he judges based on his blue standard of what is wrong. 

A wife sees only that her husband has been unloving, not that she has been disrespectful, and if she does see her disrespect, she blames it on her husband’s unloving treatment. He is the cause of the Crazy Cycle, not her. 

A husband sees only that his wife has been disrespectful, not that he has been unloving, and if he does see his lack of love, he blames it on his wife’s disrespect. She is to blame for the craziness, not him. 

They do not detect that when feeling deprived of love and respect, they end up depriving their spouse of the same, which keeps the Crazy Cycle spinning. They fuel the fire with the very same unloving and disrespectful reactions. However, they justify their own reactive behaviors. They are innocent victims defensively reacting to protect their heart and interests. They see their negative reactions as a wake-up call to their spouse: “See the error of your ways and change. Stop mistreating me!” 

Unraveling the Crazy Cycle

But a husband’s gallon of gasoline thrown on the fire is just as destructive as his wife’s earlier gallon of gasoline. Who started it may have importance, but does that really matter when he is behaving as she did? But he can be blind to this since he is focused on and troubled by her disrespectful treatment. He is not focused on and troubled by his unloving reaction since she caused it. He feels justified since in his eyes his wife is to blame. 

However, the truth is more nuanced. Regardless of who initiated the conflict on a particular day, both partners play a role in perpetuating the Crazy Cycle. When I react unlovingly to my wife, Sarah, because I feel disrespected, I am not guiltless. I do not have a “get out of jail free” card. No, I am equally disobeying Ephesians 5:33, regardless of Sarah’s initial disobedience and disrespect. In fact, my negative, unloving reactions that I blame on her can be worse than her initial appearance of being disrespectful. Sarah may have taken a situation from zero to 20, but I escalated it, going from zero to 60. I blew things out of proportion, turning a minor issue into a major ordeal. Sadly, I don’t see it since I am upset at her driving over my toe at 20 miles an hour instead of realizing that I’m now flooring it emotionally and disregarding worse consequences.

Why do we not decode this and make a healthy adjustment? Because we aren’t trying to be right; we just “know” that we are, so we remain determined to make our point of being right when we feel unloved or disrespected.

Each fixates on four levels of proof that they are the ones who are right. And like a preschooler mesmerized with the games and videos on his parent’s phone at the restaurant, the husband or wife cannot avert their eyes from what they are confident is right. His blue perspective has to be the correct one. Her pink vantage point is definitely superior. They each have all the “proof” they need.

In parts 2 and 3, we will discuss each of these four levels of “proof” the husband and wife both feel they have, and why they do not take the necessary steps to get off the Crazy Cycle, even though they know it’s spinning faster and faster. “It’s not me, it’s my spouse!” they are convinced. And they have the proof to back it up.

But do they really?