Turning Towards Your Spouse: Bid's For Attention

In John M. Gottman’s book the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work he talks about the importance of turning towards your spouse, to create a long-lasting happy marriage. Gottman says “In marriage, couples are always making what I call “bids” for each other’s attention, affection, humor, or support. Bids can be as minor as asking for a backrub or as significant as seeking help in carrying the burden when an aging parent is ill. The partner responds to each bid either by turning toward the spouse or turning away. A tendency to turn toward your partner is the basis of trust, emotional connection, passion,”. It is important to turn toward your spouse when they “bid” for your attention.

I have experienced this is my own marriage, and I am grateful to my husband for turning towards me and doing all he can to help me. Gottman goes on to say “The first step in turning toward each other more is simply to be aware of how crucial these in moments are, not only to your marriage’s trust level but to its ongoing sense of romance. For many couples, just realizing that they shouldn’t take their everyday interactions for granted makes an enormous difference in their relationship.” You should be turning towards your spouse in the little day to day things. Gottman goes on to talk about how his wife doesn’t mind doing the laundry, but that she hates to fold it, so he decided that he would fold the laundry because he didn’t mind, and it would be a little thing that his wife would appreciate.

My husband and I both work full-time jobs, but my husband has Fridays off, and I do not. One thing that my husband does to turn towards me, is that he will bring me lunch on Friday to just spend that little bit of time with me. Friday’s at my work are always busy and stressful, I am grateful that my husband spends just a little bit of time to help me relax before I have to go back to work.

It’s not always a big gesture that is going to turn you towards your spouse, it’s just the little things. Gottman says “One virtue of turning toward each other is that it is so easy to accomplish. It only takes a small gesture to lead to another and then another.” We see this portrayed in movies all of the time, a couple grows apart and when they try and do a big gesture it doesn’t work. What works is when they spend little bits of time every day to just say “thank you” or to help do the dishes. I think that it is important to turn towards your marriage and to focus on the little day to day things that are what really bring you together.