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won’t talk, his behavior seems childish to her. But if a thousand men with blue sunglasses and blue hearing aids were watching and listening, they would say, “I know why that guy shut down on her. Good grief ! Look at the way she’s talking to him. Unbelievable! Get that witch a broom!”
    Are you beginning to see why male/female communication can be such a problem? Let’s go back to the story of the anniversary card that turned into “Happy Birthday.” When the wife sees that her husband has purchased a birthday card, her spirit deflates in an instant. He has forgotten their anniversary many times, but this is the last straw! Obviously, her husband doesn’t even love her enough to take the time to read a card he bought for her!
    So she sends him an angry message, and, of course, it was in code. Does he decode her words and expressions correctly? Of course not. He is wearing blue sunglasses. All he sees is anger, irritation, and disrespect. He feels guilty, then irritated. After all, he made an honest mistake . . . give him a break!
    But the wife peers through her pink sunglasses, and she will have none of this “honest mistake” bit. She takes the conflict to a new low by assassinating his character. He thinks more of his car than he thinks of her!
    That does it. He is glad he bought her a birthday card—it serves her right. He doesn’t have to deal with this. And he walks out. So they both spend their tenth anniversary wondering how a little thing like a card could cause so much craziness. But, of course, the card wasn’t really the issue. The real issue was that the wife felt unloved and responded the only way she knew how—by getting in her husband’s face and telling him off. (Not all wives do that, but most lean in that direction at such moments!) With her pink sunglasses and pink hearing aids firmly in place, she wanted him to be genuinely sorry —not defensive, but asking forgiveness. Then they could have gone out for a nice dinner. But his blue sunglasses and blue hearing aids wouldn’t let that happen. His real issue—which he probably couldn’t even verbalize—is that he felt disrespected. He would show her, and so two essentially goodwilled people wound up spinning on the Crazy Cycle with no clue about how to slow it down or stop it.
    The goodwilled husband is “concerned about . . . how he may please his wife” and the goodwilled wife is “concerned about . . . how she may please her husband”(1 Corinthians 7:33–34).
    What do I mean by “goodwilled people”? Simply that both of these people love each other a great deal. They do not mean real harm; they do not intend real evil toward one another. They are hurt and angry, but they still care deeply for one another. That is why they spent their anniversary evening in separate rooms, miserable, wondering how this whole stupid thing could have happened. (And the reason neither will figure it out is that each blames the other for the whole sorry affair.)
    SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH CONFIRMS THE CENTRALITY OF LOVE AND RESPECT
    As long as spouses do not learn to decode the pink and blue messages they are sending one another, the Crazy Cycle will spin and spin some more. What is that one thing that is going on inside of her, where the code is obviously pink? What is the one thing that is going on inside of him, where the code is obviously blue? The woman absolutely needs love, and the man absolutely needs respect. It’s as simple—and as difficult—as that.
    Interestingly enough, scientific research confirms that love and respect are the foundation of a successful marriage. Dr. John Gottman, professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington, led a research team that spent twenty years studying two thousand couples who had been married twenty to forty years to the same partner. These people came from diverse backgrounds and had widely differing occupations and lifestyles. But one thing was similar—the tone of their