The Crazy Cycle In The Workplace - Study Guide (Download)

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

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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?

Your wife feels you are open with her when you discuss financial concerns, possible job changes or ideas for your future.

Could you be facing a crisis in faith more than a crisis in your marriage?

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?”

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

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.

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.

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

A man has a natural, inborn desire to go out and “conquer” the challenges of his world – to work and achieve.

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

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

God designed the woman to love. He’s not going to command her to agape her husband when He created her to do that in the first place. God is not into redundancy.

Marital researchers agree that a huge percentage of communication problems between husband and wife are due not to what is said but to how it is said – the attitude and tone of voice.

It’s true that women have intuition and that men should listen to them. It’s also true that women have blind spots and need the insight of their husbands.

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

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)

We might say that every negative action in the family has an equal and opposite negative reaction.

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.

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

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.

Be quick to listen and understand and you have a much better chance of being understood.

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.

Accidental sparks (unwise remarks) ignite and fuel a fire, and vroom goes the Crazy Cycle.

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.

A strong woman of dignity puts on respect out of her love and reverence for Jesus Christ. She trusts that His word not only protects and empowers her, but also rewards her with incomprehensible eternal blessings.

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

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

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

Your marriage is really a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for your Lord.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

When a husband feels disrespected, he has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel unloving to his wife. (Perhaps the command to love was given to him precisely for this reason!) When a wife feels unloved, she has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to her husband. (Perhaps the command to respect was given to her precisely for this reason!)

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

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

A major step toward a happy marriage is accepting differences and working them out with love and respect.

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.

Your words reveal your heart.

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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.

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.

[Women], your self-love cannot be derived from your husband’s love. It can affect it, but it does not determine it.

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

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.

Often the apparent issue isn’t the real issue; the real issue is always a matter of love or respect.

Thank God for His forgiveness of your mistakes. In trying to be a loving man or a respectful woman, we blow it. Owning up to mistakes is never easy, but it is always the way to move forward. Take good care not to accuse your spouse of mistakes as you pray. Also, pray about any forgiving to be done in the family, any forgiveness that needs to be asked. Children may need forgiveness (and what about Mom and Dad?). “There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

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.

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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.

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

When parents genuinely trust and follow the Lord and His ways, their faith spills over onto the children.

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.”

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

Always see your mate as an ally. Feedback is of little use if you see your spouse as an enemy. Giving and receiving constructive feedback is based on feelings of goodwill in both partners. Both of you need to remember that, even if you don’t always agree and even if you become irritated or angry, you are friends, and neither of you means to hurt the other.

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.

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

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.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

“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.“

You have to become proactive, rather than just trying to stop the reactive.

Mutual submission is the only way to live fairly together with mutual authority.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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

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

Wives, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your husband not only back to you, but to God. Husbands, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your wife not only back to you, but to God. (1 Corinthians 7:16)

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

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?

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

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

Unconditional love or respect is never wasted. Hang onto this promise: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

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

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

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.