The Crazy Cycle In Marriage - Study Guide (Download)

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.

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.

Mistakes can’t be undone, but they can be forgiven.

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.

Your words reveal your heart.

In the ultimate sense you marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship with Jesus Christ.

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

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.

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.

Clearly, in the marriage, in the family and in the household, when you speak words of blessing, you are speaking to the Lord, and for this you will be rewarded.

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

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.

A woman needs love like she needs air to breathe. A man needs respect like he needs air to breathe.

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!

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

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.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for Jesus Christ. God is using your spouse to bring you an eternal reward.

This is the Rewarded Cycle: His love blesses regardless of her respect and her respect blesses regardless of his love.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Self-interest should never come ahead of your spouse’s interests.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

Always try to look at your spouse the way Jesus does.

He will feel appreciated when you recognize his problem-solving approach as his male brand of empathy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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)

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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

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)

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.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

Ladies, be careful. “A nagging wife goes on and on like the drip, drip, drip of the rain” (Proverbs 19:13).

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.

Never give up. If you want to have a strong marriage, you need to accept temporary setbacks as part of the game.

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

If you want your wife to express appreciation for your attempts to be loving, you must use thankful words when she tries to speak or act respectfully.

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

Don’t conclude that your spouse is wrong when he/she is seeking to do the right and righteous thing.

We are equal but we are not the same.

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.

Do you believe that there is a God who really loves you and wants to help you?

Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative with lots of love and respect in between.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

It’s crucial to communicate with the right tone of voice and the right expression on your face.

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

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

To build a lasting legacy, use proven wisdom that you glean from the Lord.

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Don’t pressure yourself with perfection. We are going to fail. A righteous man falls 7 times but gets back up.

If a husband loves his wife as he should, she will feel honored and respected. If a wife respects her husband as she should, he will feel loved and appreciated. It’s a win-win.

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

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.

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

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)

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

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.

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

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