Love & Respect: Chapter 1 (Part 1)

Getting on the Crazy Cycle is all too easy. Recognizing that you're on the Crazy Cycle and learning how to keep it from spinning out of control is possible if husband and wife can learn how to meet each other's basic needs for love and respect.




Unfortunately, when a wife feels her husband is unloving, her usual approach is to complain and criticize in order to motivate her husband to become more loving. However, this usually proves about as successful as trying to sell brass knuckles to Mother Teresa.




Husbands are generally assured of their wives' love. Nevertheless, when wives show dislike, he interprets it as disrespect and even contempt. So the husband decides he will motivate his wife to become more respectful by acting in unloving ways. You see where this is going... it's a vicious cycle!




In regards to Ephesians 5:33, God commands wives to respect their husbands without conditions.

To say the least, doing something when you don't really feel you want to do it is counterintuitive. Therefore, this passage must be acted out in faith. God has ordained that wives respect their husbands as a method to win husbands to Himself. As a husband opens his spirit to God, he reopens his spirit to his wife. No husband feels affection toward a wife who appears to have contempt for who he is as a human being. The key to creating fond feelings of love in a husband toward his wife is through showing him unconditional respect.




Wives want their husbands to appreciate how much she loves him, and she yearns to feel more love from him. The best way to love a husband is to show him respect in ways that are meaningful to him. Such respect lets him feel his wife's love for him and ignites in him feelings of love for his wife.




End note: Keep things light - this releases tension.