Crazy Cycle CD

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

We can communicate the truth in the best of manners, but the person may be so insecure he or she can only react and attack like a wounded bear.

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.

Marriage is a test of how you unconditionally love and respect your spouse as you obey, honor, and please the Lord.

When your wife comes to talk to you, listen to her. Realize she is coming to you because you matter more to her than anyone else. She has certain emotional needs and only you can meet them. Sometimes she may say things that don’t make sense to you and she is apt to misspeak and exaggerate when she is upset, but don’t put her down. Instead, listen to her heart. Give her a chance to express her concerns and, as she does so, don’t try to fix her. Don’t give her your solutions unless she asks for them.

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

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

We are either going to give in the darkness or we are going to give into the darkness.

There is a discrepancy between who we want to be and see ourselves to be and how we actually sound in voice and writing. But with self-reflection and honesty, we can turn the corner and improve our communication. We need only evaluate what we are about to communicate.

Marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and your reverence for Jesus Christ.

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

Don’t label each other as bad because you differ on how you solve your troubles.

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)

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

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

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

When a husband chooses to do or say something loving, and that includes saying, ‘I’m sorry for coming across in an unloving way,’ he energizes his wife. When a wife decides to express herself respectfully, and that includes apologizing for her disrespectful attitude, she energizes her husband.

When a husband feels disrespected, it is especially hard to love his wife. When a wife feels unloved, it is especially hard to respect her husband.

[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?”

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.

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)

Since it is easy to focus on the negative, focus on your mate’s good qualities and express thanks with positive words of Love or Respect.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

Each of you must focus on what God is calling you to do toward your spouse. Do not focus on what you think God is calling your spouse to do toward you.

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.

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)

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

He will feel appreciated when you disagree with him only in private and honor his authority in front of the kids.

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.

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.

Wives, to energize your husband do an activity with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, without talking.

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

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.

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

Do you understand that God feels compassion for you, no matter what you have done or what your circumstances may be?

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

The difference between successful couples and unsuccessful couples is that successful ones keep getting up and dealing with the issues.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

You both forgive for one simple but profound reason: because you know Christ has forgiven you!

It is so easy to draw wrong conclusions about a spouse’s character and motives due to an occasional flare-up or silly comment.

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.

Responding to offensive words or actions with your own offensive words and actions is damaging and unproductive.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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?

God is not pink. God is not blue. God is purple. When two become one, they have the potential of displaying God’s attributes and character.

If a husband is commanded to agape- love his wife, then she truly needs love.

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.

When a wife asks, “Do you love me?” She is not trying to put her husband on the spot. She is simply looking for reassurance.

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

I had often asked God to compensate for my mistakes, but in return had I thought He would give me perfect children?

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

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.

Focus on the positive in the midst of the negative, and the Energizing Cycle will keep right on humming.

Money squabbles don’t undermine love and respect; they simply reveal unloving and disrespectful attitudes, which are the real reason why a marriage can start to wobble on the Crazy Cycle.

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.

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

One thing to remember in this culture is if we say something complimentary towards one gender, we aren’t saying something against the other.

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

Above all trust God when the “whys” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

Husbands, to energize your wife give her face-to-face time, allowing her to talk and share her feelings.

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

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

“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.“

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.

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

Trusting and obeying God’s Word because we love and reverence God never, ever makes us a hypocrite! When the alarm goes off in the morning, we get up, even when we don’t feel like it getting up. Because we do what we don’t feel like doing, does that make us hypocrites? No, it’s a sign we are responsible people. Showing respectful behavior when we don’t “feel respectful” is evidence of maturity.

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.

As mature men, we need to take leadership and put this out on the table. We must acknowledge our feelings- we need to feel respected. However, as we do this we must acknowledge our wife’s feelings- she needs to feel loved!

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.

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.

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.

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

We all need love and respect equally. But, during conflict our felt needs are as different as pink is from blue.

Be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.

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.

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

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.

Can you begin to trust that God feels love for you even when you don’t feel that love?

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

There is power and freedom that comes in understanding that no one can cause you to react in a certain way. It is your choice.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

His love blesses regardless of her respect; her respect blesses regardless of his love.

Both Judas and Peter denied Jesus Christ, but there is a huge difference between a Judas and a Peter.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?