The crazy cycle

If there is no love from him, she will react without respect.  If there is no respect from her, he will react without love.  This continues to cycle.  I call this ‘Crazy cycle’ (Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, “Love & Respect”).

            The Bible clearly commands the couples.  It is the commandment of Ephesians 5:33 – “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”  Clearly, the word of God commands that the husband must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband.  Why?  The reason is because the wife desperately needs her husband's love and her husband sincerely wants his wife's respect.  However, all couples experience too many times that their needs such as love for the wives and respect for the husbands aren’t fulfilled in their marital lives.  And they blame on each other.  The husband says that he doesn’t want to love his wife because she doesn’t respect him.  The wife says that she doesn’t want to respect her husband because he doesn’t love her.  The couple who isn’t being satisfied by each other because their needs aren’t fulfilled by each other blames each other.  In the end, the husband who isn’t being respected by his wife doesn’t want to love his wife, and the wife who isn’t being loved by her husband refuses to honor her husband.  As a result, a 'crazy cycle' is born between the couple.

            What is the husband's problem?  I am sure if the husband is a believer, then he knows from the Bible Ephesians 5:25-31 that a husband should love his wife just as Jesus loves the church.  Nevertheless, he sometimes doesn’t want to love his wife.  Actually, he hates to love his wife because he isn’t getting respect from his wife.  But this reason is just an excuse.  This is because Jesus' love toward church is unconditional.  That is, the husband’s love toward his wife shouldn’t be conditional.  Whether his wife respects him or not, the husband's responsibility is to love his wife unconditionally.  Of course, even this responsibility is known to many believing husbands.  However, they often refuse to obey His command when they have experienced conflict with their wives because they aren’t led by His Word.  Why is that?  It seems that when the wives spits out a disrespectful comment in the midst of anger, their husbands don’t want to love their wives.  In that kind of circumstance, the husbands usually go into a ‘cave’.  They tend to back off and be silent.

What is the wife's problem?  When her husband is silent, she feels ignored.  She feels that her husband is trivial about her value.  For the wife who wants to be loved by her husband but who is ignored by him, the approach she mainly chooses to be loved by him is to criticize and complain for the purpose of stimulating her husband.  And these criticisms and complaints are interpreted by the husband as not respecting him, and furthermore as contempt (Eggerich).  But in fact, his wife's criticism and complaints are expressions that ask him to love her.  But how many husbands know this?  The silence and complaints that persist between the silent husband and the complaining wife, and finally the husband who is not being respected and the wife who is not being loved, the couple will experience the crazy cycle.  What is important is to be conscious of this crazy cycle and the couple to devote themselves to break that cycle.  They shouldn’t neglect this crazy cycle to keep on circulating as the husband keeps on not loving his wife and the wife keep on not respecting her husband.  We should no longer satisfy with maintaining our marital relationships just like the crazy couples.  We must rededicate ourselves to love our wives and to respect our husbands.  In order to do so, the husband must love his wife unconditionally.  Where is the husband who does not love his wife?  But the problem is that the husband’s love is not being delivered to his wife properly.  The reason is because the husband does not know his wife well.  Therefore, the husband should learn to love his wife in the wife's position as he gets to know her more in depth.  How about the wife?  What should she do?  She must respect her husband unconditionally.  She must not think that she will respect her husband only if he loves her.  The Bible says that the wife should respect her husband unconditionally as well (Eph. 5:33).  She needs to know how to respect her husband.  How can she respect her husband if she doesn’t know how to respect him?  The wife needs to know her husband.

            Both husband and wife need to put down their strengths and develop their weaknesses.  In other words, as the husband lays down what he is good at it, that is respecting other, he must learn to love which he is not good at it.  The same is true to the wife.  She needs to put down what she is good at it which is loving others.  Where in the world is the husband who can satisfy his wife when she expects the same love from her husband in her viewpoint of love?  She needs to lay down her love and she needs to learn how to respect her husband.  When God has created the marriage system and mated the man and the woman as the couple under the system, I think He wants the couple to praise each other's strengths and to learn their weaknesses from each other's strengths and thus they can experience unity in the Lord.  The husband should learn to love from his wife and the wife should learn to respect from her husband.  Therefore, the couple must grow and mature in love and respect as husbands and wives and glorify God.