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

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

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

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

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.

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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

When a husband chooses to come across lovingly even though he feels disrespected, he can prevent the Crazy Cycle from spinning and possibly getting out of control.

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)

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

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

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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.

“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.“

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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.

In your marriage be the first to “seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:11)

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.

How we react to a situation reveals more about us than about the other person.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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

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!

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

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

[Women], as you enter quiet dignity, not preaching at your husband or scolding him as though you were his mother, something happens in his soul as a male.

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.

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

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.

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.

It is crucial for a husband and wife to see that neither one is wrong, but both of them are very different--in body function, outlook and perspective.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

[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?”

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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)

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

A most significant point of this book is this: If what we think is true, kind, necessary, and clear, we need to have the courage to hit send. This isn’t about refraining from speaking; this is about speaking.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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