Love and Respect can Save a Marriage

Using the fundamental biblical truth of Ephesians 5:33 and personal experience from his counseling ministry and his own marriage, Eggerichs developed the concept known as "The Crazy Cycle."

The simple truth of "The Crazy Cycle" is that when a woman feels unloved, she will react to her husband without respect. By the same token, when a man feels disrespected, he will react to his wife with unloving behavior. In this way, many couples continue to spin and spin closer and closer to divorce and other unfortunate realities.

I found this principle to be very interesting, particularly when I applied it to the study of my own marriage (of particular interest to me for obvious reasons). Although I had, for quite some time, understood the concepts of love for a woman and respect for a man, I had not considered this "Crazy Cycle."

What I discovered was startling and helpful: My marriage follows this model. If I feel as though my husband is being unloving towards me, I tend to react by nagging or with other disrespectful behavior. When he feels (for example), nagged by me, he is more likely to shut down and not exhibit loving behavior.

Photo Credit: Image is from the book!

Eggerichs was successful in illustrating the way in which couples communicate with one another. In particular, I was impressed at how easy it was for me to begin to comprehend my husband's tendency to "shut down" when we begin to have an argument. Eggerichs went to great pains to explain this particular behavior of men and I found this part of the book fascinating.

I also believe that Eggerichs has a genuine compassion for women and that he was quite up-front initially in the book in openly confessing that he didn't understand their part in their own marital strife. He doesn't come across as holier-than-though and he admits to his own marriage problems throughout the book.

I also personally like anecdotal evidence. Perhaps I am a creature of contradictions, since in one of my other favorite books about marriage is based on very real research. Regardless, I felt as though this book was down-to-earth and based on the personal success that the Eggerichses had in their marriage as well as the success of other couples in their ministry.

Whoah! Love and Respect made me resentful of my husband? Yes, it did. And yes, I'm still recommending that you read the book for yourself.

When I began to read this book (not long after I had purchased it), my husband and I were in the middle of an argument. It started mainly because I was struggling to be respectful of my husband in a very difficult situation: we were trying to take our daughter to a doctor's appointment at a clinic that is very difficult to find. He kept complaining that I needed to call their office for directions. I had already done so twice and they were getting irritated with me (because their directions were wrong). I was struggling not to snap at him and to remain respectful when I was feeling very suffocated by his demands. We wound up in a big argument and I read the book, cover to cover, while we waited for our daughter's appointment.

I was seething while I read it. In the beginning, Eggerichs starts out being very sympathetic to the feelings of women. I cried. I felt understood. Then, gradually, he began to tell me that my husband knows how important it is to be loving towards me, but that I need to understand how important it is to respect my husband.

It was there that I became frustrated. I lost sight of what I had initially hoped would be a balanced approach and became disillusioned with the book. Although I finished it (reading it cover to cover), I disregarded it after that, feeling as though Eggerichs had treated me the same way that John Gray had: in a way that I felt was unbalanced in favor of men.

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I don't actually usually re-read very many books. I have such a huge stack of books on marriage and Christian living that I want to get to that I often make a judgment on the first three chapters of a book and put it aside if it isn't holding my attention. This has become a bad habit.

Having completed my review of For Women Only, I decided that I would continue to review the books I had read on the subject. This meant that one or two needed to be picked back up and I would need to finish reading them. With Love and Respect, however, I had already read the book. I had one I could review, even if it was one I hadn't particularly enjoyed.

I read it again: In one sitting. I found bits of helpful information that I hadn't seen the first time around. Somehow, Eggerichs' perspective seemed to be different when I wasn't angry with my husband. Suddenly I was seeing the book with new eyes.

I honestly have to say that regardless of what you read in the negative Amazon reviews, and regardless of how you feel about Eggerichs being biased towards men, this book is worth purchasing, because once you've read it once, you must hold onto it and read it again (and again).