Thomas Nelson Book Review

Have you ever found yourself in an argument with your spouse and you don’t even know how you got there? Then, what’s worse, you can’t seem to come to an agreement over whatever menial thing it was that started the argument? And do you find that sometimes you don’t even remember what that menial thing was?

Yeah. Me too. 

These types of fights happen far too often in marriages, and without the tools to decode each other, spouses who find themselves in these situations often find themselves riding what Emerson Eggerichs calls “The Crazy Cycle.” The thing about it is, that most of the time they don’t even realize that this is what’s going on! They just think their spouse is being ridiculous, insensitive, disrespectful, horrible… and thus the lines of communication are broken and marriages fail.

In The Language of Love and respect: Cracking the Communication Code with Your Mate, Eggerichs confronts this very problem. He spent years of his life as a marriage counselor listening to these types of complaints from couples day in and day out. Being married himself, he also had first hand experience of “The Crazy Cycle” in his own marriage. As he prayed and searched the Bible for God’s perspective on the matter, the answers he found were incredible, and surprisingly simple! In this book, he gives well-meaning couples who ride "The Crazy Cycle" day in and day out (or even just once in a while), the communication tools they need to decode the reasons behind their spouse’s behavior. He likens male/female communication to pink and blue earphones. A man and woman can hear exactly the same thing and draw different conclusions from it and react to it differently because men hear it through “blue earphones” and women hear it through “pink earphones.” Neither is wrong, “just different.” The sooner couples learn that, and the communication tools to work through it, the sooner they will find themselves getting off “The Crazy Cycle” of ridiculous fights and lack of communication, and they will find themselves on “The Rewarded Cycle” where each is looking out for the best interest of the other and working hard to fill each other’s “love tanks.”

I have to say I LOVE this book! As I was reading it I found myself able to daily apply the principles discussed here to my marriage. I saw one after another possible argument between my wonderful husband and I being diffused because I was able to recognize the fact that my husband was wearing blue earphones and I could  react accordingly. When I applied Eggerich’s principles to our relationship, I found that our marriage flourished even more than usually.

I think that every married couple should have this book. It’s such a powerful tool that I feel that if couples across this country were to read it, the divorce rate would drop significantly. It’s amazing and in the future I plan on giving it as a present to every couple whose marriage I attend!