Cycle Of Dissafection Series

1Pe 5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:

1Pe 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

1Pe 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

Satan loves to use pride to bring down marriages, homes and churches. We must humble ourselves. More than appearing to be right in our situations we must strive to be righteous.

1. Disaffection, hostility, isolation, seperation, distancing, division, usually the other persons actions cause this

1. Dr. John Gottman a professor at the University of Wshington wrote about the 4 horses couples ride to their own destruction. These horses represent dangerous and wrong ways to communicate. These are bad habits that must be broken, usually prideful immature people use these techniques.

1. Criticism – makes the other feel like they cannot do anything right. They feel like they are inadequate as a person. It covers the person in shame.

2. Contempt – intention to insult and abuse them with words . words are wielded like a bat, calling names, making fun of, put-downs. The results of physical abuse are apparent outside black eyes, bruises, the results of contemt results in inner pain

3. Defensiveness – not wanting to confess to my wrong doing. Don’t want to take ownership of my actions. It is always his or her fault. The abuser oftentimes says you make me do this. All of us can get people to side with us. It is important at times for us to be godly enough to receive rebuke and correction.

4. Stonewalling cold unresponsive a stone wall, non participator, decide to stop working on the issues, this does not get better by itself

1Pe 5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:

1Pe 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

1Pe 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

2. Raising the Bar

Is when for example –the husband is thirsty and gets ticked off when the wife doesn’t get him some iced tea or the wife gets upset when the husband doesn’t get her some apple pie from the buffet

Both people rationalize that if they really loved me they would have know that I wanted my iced tea or my apple pie this thinking is flawed because it is very inward focused. It does not consider what the other person is involved with at the time.

Raising the bar is a form of desperation used by spouses who are wore out. They are insecure and wanting some assurance that they are still loved and valuable to their husband or wife. So they set some hurdle that only they can see-in secret. This usually causes much pain and little gain, because nobody can read. This is a destructive act which leads to

3. Sensing Failure in the Relationship

Fighting usually brings about shame and guilt due to the mean things that are said and done. This brings about shame and guilt. When your husband or wife is beat down, and made to feel like they cant do anything right they begin to walk around with guilt and shame. They feel like a failure, and they will begin to shy away from the relationship. The sense of failure brings is to

4. Evaluating the relationship negatively

At this point you make your husband/wife evil villains. They are no longer just someone you are having trouble getting along with they are now evil and you make them someone who is trying to hurt you. So then their comes along the need for

5. Self preservation –

As your husband or wife becomes more evil in your eyes walls go up thicker and faster. You look at every move the other makes as a calculated attack just to make you unhappy. This leads to more distancing.

At this point I am unhappy w/ this marriage becomes I hate this marriage and then becomes I am want out of this marriage

Eph 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

Eph 4:30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

Eph 4:31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

Eph 4:32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Pride and selfishness is a big part of our problem with relationships