The Crazy Cycle In Marriage - Study Guide (Download)

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.

Here is the secret to marriage that every couple seeks and yet few find: Unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It’s the secret that will help you achieve a brand new level of intimacy.

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

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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.

If we subscribe to the belief that because we are equal we are the same, then we’re going to expect our spouse to respond the way we do.

Husbands primarily want to hear ‘respect” talk during conflict. Wives primarily want to hear “love” talk during conflict.

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.

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

We have to step back as Christ followers and ask, “Do I have false expectations that my relationship should be romantic 99% of the time?”

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Your wife will feel esteemed when you speak highly of her in front of others.

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.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

Just because you may feel unloved or disrespected does not mean your spouse is sending that message.

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.

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

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

We must bring our identity in Christ to our parenting—we must not derive our identity from our children.

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.

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

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

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

You can be right in the argument, but wrong in your approach.

The woman absolutely needs love, and the man absolutely needs respect. It’s as simple- and as difficult- as that.

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

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Before hitting send, ask yourself, "Have I listened carefully and understand the exact issue on the table?"

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.

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

Do not live by the standards of Hollywood; trust what God says in His Holy Word.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Let the Lord change you, but don’t try to change each other.

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.

Marriage is a tool and a test to allow God’s will to be revealed in our lives.

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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 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)

The more we are upset at something, the wiser it is to let twenty-four hours pass before responding.

A parent needs to feel respected, especially during conflicts...A child need to feel loved, especially during disputes.

When a wife insists that her husband earn her respect, she puts him in a lose-lose situation.

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

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.

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

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Your spouse has a need that you don’t have. Are you going to say there is something seriously wrong with them or will you say “Viva la Difference”?

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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.

Your words reveal your heart.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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.

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)

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.”

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

[Husbands] do you realize the power of just holding your wife’s hand?

When you possess a forgiving spirit, words of Love and Respect will flow authentically from your lips- and realize that the Lord Himself is listening to you at moments like these. He knows you are not powerless, but actually full of power that He has granted you.

Your spouse deserves the truth from you. Do your best to tell it with love and respect.