Sit for a moment and, intentionally, recall the conversations you have had with your partner over the last 2-3 weeks. These are conversations when you are alone with your partner. Perhaps you were sitting at a restaurant waiting for your food to arrive or sitting together on the couch with no kids around.
What did you talk about? How would you describe the tenor of the conversation? When I ask my clients about this, often they say they talk about schedules, household tasks, work, or family and children. They describe their conversations as routine or matter of fact. Like my clients, you may find yourselves wishing that there was something more to your daily conversations. You want them to be more playful. You want them to be more meaningful You want the conversations to make you feel closer the way they did when you were getting to know each other.
John Gottmann says that the building blocks of relationships are what he calls bids for connections. A bid for connection is anything that one person does to reach out and connect with another. A bid can be as simple as one person waving their hand or nodding their head as another person walks by. It’s low level, but you are acknowledging this person exists, and you are reaching out in a simple way.
Gottmann says that there are three ways to respond to a bid. You can turn against it. This is a more hostile or angry response (How was your day? What do you care?). You can turn away from it. You meet a bid with little or no energy (How was your day? Fine.). The most meaningful way to respond to a bid is to turn towards it. You respond with as much or more energy and interest as your partner.
Conversations are one of the main ways we make bids for connection with our partner. Here are some ways to have better conversations with each other.
1. Talk about the everyday stuff.
Bids for connection don’t have to be lavish dates or vacations. 90 percent of bids for connection happen in the middle of ordinary and everyday life. Most likely, your lives are not filled with lots of moments of excitement or adventure. They involve routine tasks and schedules.
Because they are routine, you may not bring them up. When you do, you simply report the facts and nothing else. But you can go deeper. You can share thoughts, feelings, or opinions about these simple moments.
2. Be curious.
Be curious about your partner
One way to enhance these conversations about everyday life is to adopt a curious stance, not-knowing stance. If you and your partner have been together a long time, it is easy to assume that you know almost everything about each other. But we are always growing, and so, there is always more to know about your partner. Beyond the facts of an event, a curious stance invites you to ask about thoughts, feelings, opinions, hopes, and fears of any situation.
Be curious about yourself.
If your partner asks you a deeper question, pause for a moment of reflection instead of giving an automatic response. You can offer a response that leads to self-disclosure. It keeps the conversation going. It can make it deeper and richer.
3. Talk about uncomfortable topics.
Every couple has topics that you avoid bringing up. It could lead to conflict, make you self-conscious, or bring up unpleasant emotions. And yet, avoiding these topics makes you feel like there is something between you. It creates emotional distance. To talk about difficult topics, you have to create a place of emotional safety for each other. Creating this space is one of the main things I work on with couples in therapy.
4. Be intentional.
Sometimes the conversation flows naturally. You may miss the times that happened at the beginning of your relationship. It can still happen, but there is nothing wrong with being intentional about your conversation. Set aside a time to talk in a more deliberate way. Use a resource that offers some thought-provoking questions that invite deeper conversation (The Gottman Card Decks app is a good resource).
My marriage counseling specialty page offers you some more ways that therapy can help you grow in your relationship. I invite you to visit there to learn more.