When the Energizing Cycle Doesn’t Work

When it comes to faithfully and unconditionally applying love and respect in your marriage, what do most people say their worst fear is? For a husband, it’s that he learns to show love in the way that should touch his wife at her core but then she still shows him contempt. In response to his goodwilled attempts to be close, open, understanding, peacemaking, loyal, and esteeming (see C.O.U.P.L.E. from my book Love & Respect), she remains disrespectful.

For a wife, it’s that she learns to put on respect the way that should reach her husband at the foundation of who he is as a man but then he remains more unloving than ever. Despite her best efforts to show respect for who he is as a man, he refuses to love her the way she needs. 

In good faith, one spouse moved first as the mature one, but the other spouse did not change.

But does this mean that Love and Respect doesn’t work? 

One’s answer to that will depend on how they are ultimately seeking to be rewarded. The Energizing Cycle states that, “His love motivates her respect, and her respect motivates his love.” While certainly every loving husband should hope to motivate his wife’s respect for him, and every wife showing respect should hope to motivate her husband’s love for her, those goodwilled hopes cannot be the ultimate goal and reward the spouse is pursuing.

Because there is no guarantee when it comes to how a sinful human being with free will responds. Adam and Eve lived in paradise with only each other and the Father, yet they still chose to disobey. 

A wife can have unconditional love showered upon her by her husband and still choose to disrespect him in front of their friends and children. Likewise, a husband can be assured of his wife’s complete respect for who he is as a man and still fall into sins of unfaithfulness. But neither of these means that his love or her respect doesn’t work; it simply confirms that the ultimate goal for his love and her respect should not be the horizontal but the vertical.

One frustrated wife wrote me:

I am not patting myself on the back but I really do love Jesus Christ and I do not believe in divorce, so I stayed [with her husband who was having an affair]. Things went on and then he became involved with porn. I really feel that we worked through that and then I found out that he thought many of the other women at his work were much more beautiful than me. I found this out because he took me to a work party and announced it in front of me to his co-workers. At that point a part inside of me died. We kept living for another five years before he announced that he wanted to change things in our home and forget all of the past issues. 

While I am glad that he is at this place with Christ now, I feel I still have to struggle with a host of things that he terms are past. Trying your book is not the issue, it’s putting a gloss on the fact that sometimes a wife doesn't have anything to do with a man's infidelity. When I talked to my husband about your book, he said to me that I was not the issue when he did those things and that he chose to do those things even though I was respecting him. So how do you reconcile what you have taught through this book with that? I am not trying to be harsh but your book made me feel like a complete failure as a woman and that it was all my fault even though it wasn't. 

I know there are other women or men out in the world who will read this and know in their heart that you can be doing things right and your spouse will still cheat. Simply stated, it does happen. So while I liked your book I feel there are some issues that can't be glossed because of the level of devastation to a person’s spirit.

Her husband admitted that despite her choosing to show him respect, he still chose to have an affair, look at pornography, and lust over his coworkers. The onus was on him and his issues, not her. He was not blaming any kind of lack of respect on her part for his philanderous ways. But still, she feels like a failure in that showing him respect did not keep him faithful.

This is extremely unfortunate, and we all hurt for her, as we do anyone whose spouse has cheated on them. But a few points on the matter of showing unconditional respect for her husband must be made.

One, unconditional respect is defined as showing unconditional positive regard toward the spirit of her husband. God does not call her to respect evil behavior. In other words, when she shows him contempt day after day, he will close down just as any wife would close down if her husband showed contempt or hostility toward her week after week. God’s Word calls us to be a certain type of person regardless of who our spouse is. But that doesn’t mean we endorse sin, only that we confront it without chronic contempt and hostility. I always encourage a wife to think about if her husband yelled and screamed at her about her sin—would she be motivated to change? Not from him.

Two, she admitted that he confessed his ways, renewed his relationship with Christ, and is trying to move on from his past. Her respect for him did work! The pain, though, is that it took so long, and she feels cheated in more ways than one. I get that. Though God’s Word reveals that a wife can win her disobedient husband via respectful behavior (1 Peter 3:1-2), there is not a timeline attached to this. Sadly, it sometimes takes longer than anyone wishes. But the goal is worthy, especially if a wife knew that what she endured for several years would allow marital and family happiness for another thirty years. 

Such a wife needs to realize she had tremendous influence here, but the time gap has caused her to conclude it was ineffective. I would tell her that had she not been showing such a respectful spirit toward him, he might not have repented, though she was not responsible for him to repent. Sadly, yes, he still fell into sin with other women, despite having a respectful wife at home; but because she obeyed Ephesians 5:33 and 1 Peter 3:1-2 we see that he came under conviction for his sin, or so it appears that way. Many a wife would admit to wishing they had the same story! But yes, it did not happen as quickly as hoped nor stopped sins of betrayal soon enough. In that sense, she had biblical grounds for divorce. But she did not appropriate that right, so should she regret her decision to endure? I think not.

Three, the reason this wife now feels like a failure is because her eyes are on a secondary though still important prize—her husband’s love. Yes, she needs his love. God hardwired her to be loved. She needs love as she loves. Again, though, the husband was slow in showing love to her faithfully. Is anything more painful to a wife? 

Yet, her reasons for putting on unconditional positive regard toward the spirit of her husband was due to her love of Jesus Christ. Receiving her husband’s love was not the incentive for obeying Scripture. As crucial as his love was, she should have done what she did to hear from Jesus, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” As Paul wrote, we do what we do “as to the Lord.” We don’t do it first and foremost to a spouse. This wife needs to have an eternal perspective. Given she chose to stay in the marriage, doing what she did unto Christ, nothing was wasted. Everything counted to Jesus. The longer she endured, the more she touched the heart of Christ. She must take that by faith. The world will tell her she is a fool. But Paul says that what the world calls foolishness, God calls wisdom. I hope this wife understood that she entered the Rewarded Cycle, which says, “His love unto Christ regardless of her respect. Her respect unto Christ regardless of his love.”

When you love or respect unconditionally, you are following God and His will for you. Ultimately, your spouse and your marriage have nothing to do with it. You are simply demonstrating your obedience and trust in the face of an unlovable wife or a disrespecting husband. And unconditional love or respect will be rewarded!

Shortly after his words on marriage in his letter to the Ephesians, Paul also wrote, “Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does” (Ephesians 6:7-8). Paul is saying that whatever we do as to the Lord we will receive back from the Lord. In marriage, everything you do counts, even if your spouse ignores you.

The wife who wrote to me feels like a failure and claims that Love and Respect doesn’t always work. I get it. My mom separated from my dad for five years. Things do not happen according to our expectations or timeline. But God would say otherwise to this wife. He is very pleased with her, though the world says she is a doormat. She didn’t fail at all. She chose to respect her husband regardless of his response to her. She served him as though she were serving the Lord. It just took longer than any of us wanted for her.

When obeying God’s command to love and respect, keep your eyes on the vertical, not the horizontal. The vertical always rewards!