Marriage Insight from Gottman

I am preparing for a new calling starting in January, to teach the church's Marriage and Family relationship class - it's a new course curriculum produced by LDS Family Services. That is what led me to review some secular marital material. (Have no fear, I went with info. from an author who is quoted in the church's instructor's manual.)

"The Relationship Cure" by the foremost renowned researcher on marriage and family relationships, John Gottman, has provided me with a simple, yet powerful concept I want to share.

In studying marriages, Gottman and team has found evidence that suggests that success or failure of a relationship directly relates to the "emotional connectedness" of the couple. Being connected does not happen in grandiose ways, during special events, or with fanfare, it happens up to 100 times per hour in situations such as dinner around the table.

Gottman has identified what he calls "bids" for emotional connection. Bids are a spouse's plea or request for connection. The "bids" can range from being overt to covert, such as, "I want to go to bed with you," or, "How was your day?" The level of emotional connection is a result of how these "bids" are received. They happen frequently when couples are interacting and happily married couples have patterns of receiving and responding to each other's "bids" in a positive manner.

Gottman says that there are 3 types of responses to "bids." They are: #1 - Turing towards, #2 Turning Away, or #3 Turning against.

When a bid - or request for attention/connection - is offered, the other spouse does one of the aforementioned 3 things. Turning toward the "bidder" means that the other spouse acknowledges the bid and interacts with the bidder, connects, & engages in communication in some way. This acknowledgement of a "bid" allows the "bidder" to feel heard, validated, loved, .... connected emotionally. Turning away is when the spouse ignores the bid, completely disconnected from the "bidder's" invitation for closeness. Turning against is when the spouse responds abruptly, annoyed, critically, antagonistically, etc. to the other's "bid." As you can imagine, couples that have this third pattern and those that commonly end in divorce.

This new understanding came at a great time for me. It gives words and even an avenue to obtaining what I've been after - a deeper friendship with my spouse. As newlyweds at Wymount (married student housing at BYU) we used to chuckle at the frequent counsel from our leaders to have a date night every week. They always said how important it was to continue courting after marriage. For us, at that point, every day was "date night." We were both in school, we had no TV, we had home cooked meals 3 times a day (not from a box) and we talked and exchanged ideas ALL THE TIME. We also attended the temple every week. Life was pretty much perfect! (If only we'd realized it then!!!) So it was impossible to imagine that our friendship would ever shift.

Joke's on us!

Three (nearly 4) children later - we look more like a tag team parenting troupe or referees at a WWF World Championship, jumping in and out of the "organized chaos" (that we call our family), than 2 best friends. We're still committed to our covenants, we still have the same foundation for our relationship, but we do not always do well with Gottman's "bidding." That will all change now that we get it, however. It already has.

Just wanted to share this. I'm amazed at what can be learned through the library - who would have guessed? (I know, I know, all you readers out there have known it all along!) And the best thing - it's free! I hope to have a home library someday, but I've decided that moving every few months, especially across the ocean at times, is not conducive to shipping loads of books, and that having a "home library" might work well if we have a "home" first.