The Small Moments That Make or Break Your Marriage: Understanding Bids for Connection
- Dr. Sean Stokes
- May 23
- 6 min read
Most couples don't fail at the big moments — they fail at the small ones.
You're sitting across the dinner table from your spouse. They mention something they saw on the news. You nod and look back at your phone. Or maybe they reach over and squeeze your hand, and you pull away slightly — nothing dramatic, just a small withdrawal. These moments happen dozens of times every day in every marriage.
They're not nothing. They may be everything.
Dr. John Gottman calls them "bids for connection" — and his research on how couples respond to them is one of the most sobering findings in the science of marriage.
What a Bid for Connection Actually Is
A bid is any attempt, verbal or nonverbal, that one partner makes toward the other for attention, affirmation, affection, or engagement. It can be as direct as "I need to talk to you" or as quiet as a sigh. A glance across the room. A comment about the weather. A gentle touch on the shoulder.
What makes bids easy to miss is that most of them aren't labeled. Your spouse doesn't say, "I am now making a bid for emotional connection." They say, "Did you see the clouds tonight?" — and what they mean is, I want to share something with you. I want to be near you. I want to feel like we're together.
Bids have text and subtext. Learning to hear both is one of the most practical skills in marriage — and one of the most undervalued.
The Research: 86% vs. 33%
The stakes become clear when you look at Gottman's data. In a longitudinal study of newlyweds, Dr. Gottman followed couples and returned six years later to see who was still together. The results were decisive.
Couples who remained married had "turned toward" each other's bids — responded positively — 86% of the time. Couples who had divorced within those six years had turned toward each other only 33% of the time.
That gap — more than 50 percentage points — wasn't explained by how well couples fought, or how passionately they loved each other, or how compatible they were. It came down to the unremarkable, repeated moments of daily life: did you respond when your spouse reached out?
"The majority of fights in relationships are not the result of major incompatibilities — they are the accumulated result of turning away from bids over time." — The Gottman Institute.
This is worth sitting with. The argument you had last week about parenting — or money, or chores, or intimacy — may not really be about any of those things. It may be the bill coming due on months of small disconnections neither of you noticed accumulating.
Three Ways Partners Respond to Bids
When a bid is made, there are essentially three responses:
Turning toward — you acknowledge the bid, engage with it, meet your partner where they are. This doesn't require a long conversation. "You're right, those clouds look crazy" is turning toward. So is a returned squeeze, a look of interest, a pause from what you were doing.
Turning away — you miss or ignore the bid. This is not usually malicious. It often looks like distraction, busyness, or emotional absence. But over time, missed bids send a message: what you have to offer me isn't worth stopping for.
Turning against — you respond negatively to the bid, with irritation or dismissal. "I'm watching something" said with an edge. An eye roll. While this sounds worse than turning away, Gottman notes it is at least a form of engagement — it can be repaired. Sustained turning away is often more corrosive precisely because it's so invisible.
Why We Miss Bids — And What It Costs
Most couples who struggle with bids aren't cold or uncaring. They're tired. Preoccupied. Carrying their own emotional weight. Phones and screens have added an unprecedented layer of competition for attention in the spaces where bids used to be answered automatically.
Dr. Sue Johnson, founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), frames this through the lens of attachment: our deepest relational need is the question, Are you there for me? Every bid for connection is, at its root, that question being asked again. And every time a partner turns away, the answer is quietly registered as maybe not.
Over time, this erodes something foundational. Partners who feel chronically unseen don't typically blow up about it — they slowly stop bidding. They start managing the distance. And what began as disconnection quietly becomes emotional estrangement neither partner fully chose.
The biblical writer of 1 Peter 3:7 called husbands to "dwell with your wife according to knowledge" — to live with her in understanding. The invitation runs deeper than knowing her preferences or her history. It's the ongoing, present-tense attentiveness that says: I am paying attention to you. You are worth being seen.
5 Practical Steps to Start Turning Toward
Learn to name bids in your own relationship. Pay attention for one week to the small bids your spouse makes — the comments, glances, gestures, and offhand remarks. See if you can identify the subtext. What are they actually reaching for?
Put your phone down with intention. Many missed bids today are not about emotional withholding — they're about divided attention. Create specific daily windows where you're fully present with your spouse, not partially available.
Respond to the subtext, not just the text. If your spouse says "I've been exhausted this week," don't just note the fact. Ask what's behind it. Turn toward the person, not just the statement.
Make bids yourself — clearly. Many people wait to be pursued but don't initiate. Practice asking for what you need: a conversation, time together, a moment of reassurance. This takes humility and vulnerability, and it builds the culture of mutual pursuit in marriage.
Do a bid audit together. At the end of a week, sit down and ask each other: "What did I do this week that felt like a bid you missed? What did you do that felt like turning toward?" Not as an accusation — as information.
What Happens When Bids Go Unanswered for Years
Couples in marriage counseling frequently arrive saying some version of "we've grown apart" or "I don't feel like he/she knows me anymore." What they're often describing is the end-stage of a bid pattern that developed quietly over years — one person stopped reaching out, one person stopped noticing, and the distance became familiar.
This is recoverable. But it requires more than deciding to "be present." It requires understanding the pattern that developed, identifying the bids that were missed and why, and rebuilding a dynamic where both partners feel safe enough to reach again.
EFT research has consistently shown that 70–73% of couples who go through this kind of structured emotional work are no longer relationally distressed at the end of therapy. The research on Gottman-informed couples work is similarly encouraging. What this means practically: the disconnection you're feeling is not a verdict on your marriage. It's a pattern — and patterns can change.
When to Seek Help
If you recognize your marriage in what you've read here — particularly if bids have become rare, conflict has become a stand-in for closeness, or emotional distance has started to feel like the norm — it's worth talking to someone. You don't need to be in crisis. The earlier couples address these patterns, the more material they have to work with.
Marriage counseling isn't a last resort. For many couples, it's the place where they learn — often for the first time — how to actually hear each other. And that changes everything.
If you're ready to take the first step, I'd be glad to sit down with you and your spouse. We'll look honestly at the patterns that have developed and start building something different.
SOURCES:
Gottman, J. M. & Silver, N. (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Crown Publishers. Research data on "turning toward" summarized at: The Gottman Institute — Turn Towards Instead of Away
Gottman Institute. (2023). Bids for Connection Overview. gottman.com/blog/want-to-improve-your-relationship-start-paying-more-attention-to-bids/
Johnson, S. (2008). Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. Little, Brown Spark. See also: ICEEFT research overview at iceeft.com/about-dr-sue-johnson
Keller, T. & Keller, K. (2011). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God. Dutton. Overview at The Gospel Coalition
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