No, I’m not talking about PMS. The “crazy cycle” is a phrase coined by Dr.
Emerson Eggerichs in his book and DVD teaching titled Love and Respect, and it happens in many relationships, especially
marriage. Let me explain.
Men speak, hear, see, and interpret communication through
blue megaphones, blue sunglasses, and blue earphones, while women speak, hear,
see and interpret through pink. Not
wrong, just different. For example, when
a wife says she has nothing to wear, she means she has nothing new to wear. When a guy says he has nothing to wear, he
means, “I have nothing clean to
wear!” Pink versus blue.
Everyone needs to feel cared for and valued. Imagine that each person has a “love tank”
with an attached air hose through which to breathe. If the husband steps on his wife’s “air
hose,” she’s not going to suffocate and die.
She yells, “Get off my air hose, you beast!” And if she steps on his air hose of respect,
he’s not going to let her make him wither away.
He’ll shout, “Get off my air hose!”
And a fight ensues. The question
is: will we decode the messages we send one another?
The wife comes to her husband, lamenting, “I can’t believe
I’ve gained all that weight over Thanksgiving and Christmas! I feel fat and ugly.” So that week, her husband is in the bookstore
and sees the featured book of the week, Shed
Those Excess Pounds: Post-Holiday Menus Included, prominently displayed as
the special of the month. He buys it,
brings it home for his wife, hands it to her, and she goes ballistic. He’s confused, because he wanted to help fix
the situation. But through her pink ear
phones, his wife hears, “You don’t love me; you don’t accept me unless I look
like a Dallas
cheerleader!” And she storms off,
yelling at him with less than complimentary words. Her air hose got crimped. Dr. Eggerichs says that even through a
woman’s anger, if the husband learns to listen carefully, he will hear a faint
cry, “Please love me! Why won’t you love
me?” It’s faint praise, because he matters
to her. Will he learn to decode her?
The next month, the wife is in the bookstore, and she sees a
book titled, “Improve Your Relationship,” and she buys it for her husband. She says to herself, “I know my husband is
very busy, so I’ll read it and highlight the important parts for him. She ends up underlining half the book, then
places it on the end table next to his arm chair in the living room. But he ignores it. Oh, he knows it’s there. Inside, he’s fuming: “This is the third
marriage book she’s bought in a year.
And it causes huge fights. If I
don’t say anything, I’m in trouble. If I
say something, I’m in bigger trouble.”
So he white-knuckles it and glares at the TV. Through the marriage book he hears, “I don’t
respect you; I don’t approve of you unless you read this book right now!” She’s crimped his air hose. Guys seek to do the honorable and respectful thing by avoiding
confrontation face to face. Will the wife learn to decode him?
Emerson makes the observation that a woman is very sensitive
about her body image, while the man can bring out “Atlas” anytime he wants
to. Not wrong, just different.
The woman wants to talk about their relationship to create feelings
of intimacy and love, while the man sees it as an attempt to force him to change.
Couples get on the crazy cycle when, “Without love, she
reacts without respect; and without respect, he reacts without love.” And the crazy cycle starts spinning. Round and round it goes; where it stops,
nobody knows—except the divorce lawyer (unless one of them breaks the
cycle).
The question everyone wants to know is, “Who is to break
that crazy cycle?” Dr. Eggerichs says that after much thought and prayer, the Lord gave him this answer: “The one who sees
himself or herself as the most mature.”
Hmm. How’s that for
motivation?
The goal of Mr. Eggerichs’ Love and Respect teaching is to show couples how to change the
crazy cycle, how to get on the energizing cycle, and finally the rewarded
cycle. God created women to need love,
and men to need respect. Not wrong—just
different.
Ephesians 5:33 (NIV) says, “However, each one of you also
must love his wife as he loves
himself, and the wife must respect
her husband.” God commands the husband
to love his wife because it doesn’t come naturally to him. Likewise, God commands the wife to respect
her husband because respect doesn’t come naturally to her. It’s a decision of the will to obey God’s
instructions, and it works!
According to Dr. Eggerichs, our culture has become a
feminine, love-focused culture. Even the
greeting card industry proves it: there’s not one card that mentions respect. Says Emerson, “The Women’s Lib movement
sincerely believes men are flawed; their thinking is, ‘If we could just change
men and make them more like us, everything would be great.’ These women are good-willed women with good
intentions, but they are not Christ-followers.
Even our educational system tries to make boys behave like girls. If they don’t, we’ll medicate them.”
Dr. James Dobson, when he heard Dr. Eggerichs’ teaching on
love and respect, freely admitted and regrets the fact that for years he
counseled couples incorrectly. He always
focused on getting the man to love his wife.
Emerson said when God showed him the aspect of respect for the husband,
“I finally realized the reason the husband wouldn’t come back for more
counseling was because he felt disrespected and blamed for not loving his wife
enough. I had focused on the husband
showing love for his wife. The counseling
was all one-sided. I had done it wrong
for years!”
I recommend Dr. Eggerichs’ materials to every church, to every
couple. My husband and I have led the
study three times in small group settings, and it changes all relationships –
not just married ones. One woman told us
it even helped her with the boss at work! His books are available on Amazon and the fourteen-session
DVD/workbook sets are sold from his website
http://loveandrespect.com/
. Change the home – change the culture!
Copyright © 2015
Elaine Beachy
