Crazy Cycle CD

“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.“

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

[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?”

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

Recognize your different gifts--how each of you (Pink and Blue) functions according to God’s perfect design.

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.

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)

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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.

There is a plan to parent God’s way, even when our children may seek to go their own way at time. The secret is to follow this plan regardless. When you do, I believe you succeed in His eyes.

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

Suppressing negative feelings is not loving, respectful or very wise. Speak up tactfully.

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

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

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

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!

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

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.

Whether visiting a prison, feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty a drink or speaking a word of love or respect, everything is to be done to and for Christ.

“With eyes of faith, envision Jesus standing just beyond the shoulder of your spouse and listening to every word you speak in every conversation, pleasant or tense. When you speak lovingly or respectfully to your spouse, you are speaking to Christ. Your spouse just happens to be there too.” This truth has sanctified the lips of many. Instead of giving their spouse a verbal whipping or choking on the idea of saying anything positive, now some spouses are motivated to speak words of unconditional love or respect.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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.

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

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

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

When the wife flatly says her husband will have to earn her respect before she gives him any, she leaves the husband in a lose-lose situation. Now he is responsible for both love and respect in the relationship. He must unconditionally love his wife and earn her respect.

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

The parent-child relationship is as easy, and as difficult, as love and respect.

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)

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

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

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

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.

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

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!

Will we decide how we see God based on our circumstances, or will we see our circumstances in light of how we view God?

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.

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.

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.

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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.

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

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

Getting married reveals, usually sooner than later, an incontestable fact: your spouse cannot possibly meet all your needs and desires

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Through Jesus and Peter, God set forth His standard for living in the unconditional dimension: choose to be loving even when the other person is not; do what is right regardless of the treatment you receive. I believe this standard applies directly to marriage. A husband who speaks lovingly to his disrespectful wife will be rewarded; and a wife who speaks respectfully to her unloving, not-worthy-of-respect husband will be rewarded. Whether you are husband or wife, the reward is what can keep you going in the midst of the craziness: knowing that God commends you, knowing that you have found his favor for your words and actions.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

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

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

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).

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

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

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

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

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

Mutual understanding, not communication, is the key to a healthy marriage relationship.

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!)

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.

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

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

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

As strong and powerful as marriage bonds can become, our deepest dependency must be on the Lord, not another human being.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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