Improvising Long-Lasting Relationships

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A husband and wife are strolling through their town. The wife stops at a shop and admires the wares, “Hun, these would look so cute in our sitting room.”

Two boyfriends lounge in bed in the morning. One looks over and smiles at the other.

Two wives hurry to get their two young children out the door in the morning. As they head out, one gives the other a quick peck on the cheek.

According to John Gottman, these are all examples of bids—verbal and nonverbal “gestures between couples that signal a need for attention.” Gottman’s groundbreaking research on successful marriages reveals that partners who notice and reciprocate these bids have a far greater chance of staying together.

Gottman calls bid reciprocation “turning towards” and missing bids “turning away.” His research looked at newly married couples and showed that after six years, couples who were still together turned towards 86 percent of bids, and divorced couples turned towards only 33 percent of bids. Simply put, couples who stayed married were far better at noticing and reciprocating bids for connection.

Gottman admits that catching bids isn’t as easy as one might hope. They’re easy to miss. Writing for the Gottman Institute, Zach Brittle breaks bids into 15 categories to help us notice them and lean into connection. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to remember 15 different kinds of bids. In the fast-paced blur of everyday married life, I need a much easier way to treat my husband’s bids like Pokemon and try to catch ‘em all—or at least somewhere around 86 percent of ‘em, so we can stay happily married.

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Bids as Initiations

I know I make everything about improv, but John Gottman seems to agree with me on the bid-improv connection. In his groundbreaking and wildly popular The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, he writes:

"When addressing a partner’s request, their motto tends to be a helpful 'Yes, and' rather than 'Yes, but.' This positive attitude not only allows them to maintain but also to increase the sense of romance, play, fun, adventure, and learning together that are at the heart of any long-lasting love affair."

In improv parlance, bids are a lot like initiations. For those who don’t know, improv comedy is when people spontaneously make up a scene. An initiation is what one of the improvisers says or does to get the improvised scene started.

For example, let’s say two improvisers step to the front of the stage. They both stare at each other. Uh oh, no initiation yet. Finally, one of them mimes opening a cupboard and says, “Matilda, this better not be the last roll of paper towels.”

And there you have it. One improviser got the scene started with their initiation about Matilda and paper towels.

An initiation is similar to a bid, an appeal for connection. A good improviser pays careful attention to an initiation so they can turn towards it and use it to collaboratively create a scene with their partner.

A first-rate improviser reads between the lines and remains playfully curious about the nuance of the initiation. Are we on the brink of divorce? What’s really bothering my partner? Did our 12-year-old miniature pinscher pee all over the front door again? They take what their partner has said and go along with it while remaining open and focused on the scene as it unfolds.

If initiations are bids, turning towards is akin to improv’s "Yes, and" rule. Instead of getting defensive and saying I always buy paper towels, I accept the initiation and add new information to the scene. Maybe I apologize and say, “Sorry, Bradley. I’ll clean up the dog pee, while you finish cooking breakfast.”

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Some Examples

Let’s go back to our three examples from the beginning of this post.

If my wife initiates our real-life scene by saying that some home goods would look great in our house, I can reject her bid by disagreeing. Or I could turn towards her by asking where she thought the knickknacks might go.

I don’t have to agree with her taste in home decor, and we don’t have to buy the throw pillows, but if I want to connect, I need to go along with her initiation.

My boyfriend smiles at me? I can smile back or compliment him.

Wife gives me a peck on the cheek? I can tell her I love her.

I don’t have to agree with my partner, or even be in the same state of mind, but I need to pick up on the initiations and identify that my partner is trying to start a scene with me. Am I going to play along and create a spontaneous moment with them? Then I’d better go along with their initiation and "Yes, and" until we’ve created a moment together.

To catch more of your partner’s initiations (or bids) remember the following:

1. No one is the problem. The problem is something both partners can try to fix together.
2. Stay curious and open.
3. Don’t assume.
4. Don’t get defensive.
5. Ask a lot of clarifying questions.
6. You don’t have to agree to turn towards a bid and connect.
7. It’s about connection. It’s not about you. Or at least not entirely about you.
8. It’s not about the thing. It’s about the connection.

The scene isn’t about the tchotchkes or the smile or the kiss, it’s about the relationship between the two people. It’s about the connection. That’s what keeps scenes, and marriages, going.