Relationships require a delicate balance of love, respect, and admiration. Part of maintaining that balance is remaining aware of how you react during communication. You can choose a positive, negative, or neutral response, and punctuate those responses with verbal and non-verbal cues. You may not think very much about how you respond, but reactions can have a significant impact on the health of your relationship.
Predicting relationship failure
Psychologist John Gottman investigated the impact of seemingly innocent exchanges. He asserts these exchanges, which he calls bids, can more accurately predict the success or failure of a relationship than arguments. Gottman says these exchanges are more than words; they are emotional signals. The way you react to a bid or signal can make or break your relationship. You can either bid positively, negatively, or in a neutral manner (what Gottman refers to as bidding toward, against, or turning away). He found that the more often couples chose to bid toward, the less likely they were to divorce. Licensed Mental Health Counselor Zach Brittle gave this example:
To understand turning, you have to first understand bids. A bid is any gesture — verbal or nonverbal — for some sort of positive connection with your partner. Bids can be simple or complex and can represent a request for conversation, humor, affection, support, or simply for attention. Most are actually pretty easy to spot and respond to: “How do I look?” “Can you pass the guacamole?” “Will you help me change the bedspread?” Other bids are more complicated: “Want to go to yoga with me?” “Let’s learn how to play the guitar.” “Do you feel like fooling around?”
How you can improve your communication
Gottman says a marriage can be a success if a couple learns to balance their negative and positive feelings about each other, rather than letting negative thoughts consume them.
What can make a marriage work is surprisingly simple. Happily married couples aren’t smarter, richer, or more psychologically astute than others. But in their day-to-day lives, they have hit upon a dynamic that keeps their negative thoughts and feelings about each other (which all couples have) from overwhelming their positive ones. They have what I call an emotionally intelligent marriage. … The more emotionally intelligent a couple — the better able they are to understand, honor, and respect each other and their marriage — the more likely that they will indeed live happily ever after.
Enhance your love maps
A love map is what Gottman calls the part of your brain that remembers the details of your partner’s likes and dislikes. He also refers to it as making cognitive room for your relationship. Gottman says it’s important to continue to keep note of what is important to your partner so that you can stay connected:
They remember the major events in each other’s history, and they keep updating their information as the facts and feelings of their spouse’s world change. When she orders him a salad, she knows to ask for his dressing on the side. If she works late, he’ll tape her favorite TV show because he knows which one it is and when it’s on … They know each other’s goals in life, each other’s worries, each other’s hopes.
