Quick answer
A partner points at a bird out the window. What happens next, according to a six year study of newlyweds, says a lot about whether a couple stays together.
In the early 1990s, psychologist John Gottman and his colleagues furnished an apartment lab at the University of Washington, part of the research that the press nicknamed the Love Lab. Newlywed couples stayed for a day while cameras recorded them cooking, reading, and chatting. What the researchers ended up studying was not the big fights. It was tiny moments, like one partner saying, "Look, a bird," and the other either looking up or not.
Gottman called those moments bids for connection. Years later, the couples who had answered each other's bids most often were far more likely to still be married. The finding is small and specific, and it is one of the most practical ideas in relationship research.
What a bid actually is
A bid is any attempt to get a partner's attention, interest, or support. Some are obvious: "Can you help me with this?" Many are not. A sigh at the kitchen counter. A link sent with no comment. A hand placed on a shoulder. "You will not believe what my boss said today."
Each bid is a small question underneath: are you with me? The answer comes in one of three ways, which Gottman described as turning toward, turning away, and turning against.
- Turning toward is any response that engages. "Where?" and looking at the bird. A grunt of interest. A question back.
- Turning away is ignoring or missing the bid, usually without meaning to. Eyes stay on the phone. The topic changes.
- Turning against is a hostile reply. "Can you not see I am busy?"
The numbers that made the idea famous
Gottman described the follow up in his 2001 book The Relationship Cure, and researcher Janice Driver analyzed the same lab interactions with him in a 2004 paper. Couples who were still married six years later had turned toward each other's bids about 86 percent of the time during the lab visit. Couples who had divorced averaged about 33 percent.
That is a correlation, not a guarantee, and it came from a modest sample of newlyweds. It still stands out, because the behavior measured was so ordinary. Nobody was resolving a deep conflict. They were answering each other about birds and dinner.
You might be thinking that one missed comment about a bird cannot possibly matter. Alone, it does not. The research points at the pattern. Hundreds of small answers a week add up to a sense of whether your partner is generally there or generally somewhere else.
Why bids get missed
Most turning away is not cold. It is distracted. Phones are the obvious culprit, but so are exhaustion, kids, and the habit of treating routine conversation as background noise. Over time, the partner whose bids keep falling flat often stops making them. That quiet withdrawal can look like peace from the outside.
Some people also bid in ways that are easy to miss. A partner who grew up in a family where needs were not voiced directly may hint rather than ask. Learning your partner's style of bidding is part of learning them.
How to turn toward more often
You do not need a big conversation to start. The changes are small:
- Notice the bid. When your partner says something that is not a question, treat it as one. "Huh, that is interesting, what happened?"
- Give a little. Turning toward does not require dropping everything. Looking up and saying "one sec, I want to hear this" counts.
- Put the phone face down during the first ten minutes after either of you gets home. Those minutes carry a lot of bids.
- Bid clearly yourself. "I had a rough day, can I tell you about it?" is easier to answer than a sigh.
- Repair a miss. "Sorry, I was not listening, what were you saying about your sister?" turns a miss into a catch.
When bids are going unanswered
If you realize you have stopped bidding because you expect nothing back, that is worth saying out loud without blame. "I have noticed I do not tell you about my day much anymore. I miss it." That sentence is itself a bid, and a big one.
If attempts to reconnect keep turning into arguments, a couples counselor can help. Gottman trained therapists use these ideas directly, and other approaches, such as emotionally focused therapy, work on the same need to feel answered.
Your next step is to try a one week experiment. Each evening, count the bids you notice from your partner and how many you turned toward. Do not announce it, just watch. Most people are surprised by how many there are, and by how easy it is to catch a few more.
Sources
- Gottman Institute, Turn toward instead of away
- Driver, J. L. and Gottman, J. M. (2004), Daily marital interactions and positive affect during marital conflict among newlywed couples, Family Process
- John Gottman and Joan DeClaire, The Relationship Cure (Crown, 2001)
- John Gottman and Nan Silver, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (Harmony, revised 2015)
Image: Couple reads books together while sitting on a sofa, Shixart1985. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is a bid for connection?
- Any small attempt to get a partner's attention, interest, or support: a comment, a question, a sigh, a touch. John Gottman's research describes three ways to respond: turning toward, turning away, or turning against.
- What did Gottman's research find about turning toward?
- In his newlywed research, couples still married six years later had turned toward each other's bids about 86 percent of the time in the lab, compared with about 33 percent for couples who later divorced. It is a correlation from a modest sample, not a guarantee.
- Does missing one bid hurt a relationship?
- No. The pattern matters, not any single moment. You can also repair a missed bid by coming back to it: 'Sorry, I was not listening. What were you saying?'
- How can I turn toward my partner more often?
- Treat small comments as invitations, look up when your partner speaks, put phones away for the first minutes after you reunite, and make your own bids clearly.