What happy couples do differently: the science of staying close after kids
Bids for connection: the tiny moments that keep a couple close
"Look, the first snow!" sounds like nothing. A psychologist who filmed couples for years saw it as a small test, passed or failed many times a day, and he watched which couples kept passing it.
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Nine at night. You are at the sink, and Miva is at the window. "Look, the first snow!" she says. It sounds like nothing. In fact, it is a small question: will you share this with me?
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Moments like this one were once filmed for years. In 1986, the psychologist John Gottman and his team turned a small flat at the University of Washington into a lab. Couples spent about a day in it, reading, cooking and chatting, while cameras on the walls filmed them.
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On the tapes, partners kept making little calls for attention: a comment, a question, a joke, a sigh, a hand on the arm. Gottman called each one a bid.
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A bid can get three answers. You can turn toward it: look up, answer, join in. You can turn away: miss it, or keep your eyes on the dishes. Or you can turn against it: "Not now!"
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Years later, the team checked on the couples. Gottman reports that the couples still together had turned toward each other's bids far more often than the couples who had split up. Each bid was tiny. The answers added up.
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So you turn off the tap and stand next to Miva. For half a minute, you both watch the snow fall past the street lamp. The dishes can wait. The next evening, Miva comes home with a bigger bid: real news.
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Quick check
A man looks up from his book and says to his wife: "Huh, octopuses have three hearts." She keeps reading and says nothing. Was it a bid, and what kind of answer did it get?
Show the answer
Yes, it was a bid: a small call to share a surprise. She turned away from it. She was not unkind, she just let it pass.
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Go further
Where the words and the result come from.