Some years ago I was sitting at the kitchen table reading the news on my phone when my wife said, from across the room, "Look at that cardinal." I said "Mm-hm" without looking up.
That's it. That's the whole story. Nothing blew up. Nobody cried. She went back to the dishes and I went back to whatever headline I thought was more important than a bird and the woman who wanted me to see it.
I wouldn't even remember it except that a few weeks later I read about John Gottman's research on what he calls bids, and I felt my stomach drop. Because I realized I had been saying "Mm-hm" to that woman for a very long time.
What a Bid Is
Gottman has spent decades studying couples at the University of Washington, in what came to be known as the "Love Lab." One of his most important findings is almost disappointingly small. Relationships aren't mostly built or broken in the big moments — the anniversaries, the fights, the crises. They're built in tiny, ordinary attempts to connect.
A bid is any attempt to get another person's attention, interest, or affection. "Look at that cardinal." "You won't believe what my sister said." A sigh from the other room. A hand on your shoulder as they walk by. A text with a picture of the grandkids.
And every bid gets one of three responses. You can turn toward it — look up, engage, respond. You can turn away — ignore it, miss it, give it a distracted "Mm-hm." Or you can turn against it — "Can't you see I'm reading?"
Here's the number that got me. In one of Gottman's studies of newlywed couples, the ones who were still married six years later had turned toward each other's bids about 86 percent of the time. The couples who ended up divorced? About 33 percent.
"Small things often." — John Gottman's three-word summary of what makes love last
Why I Missed Them
I've been married 42 years. I have preached wedding sermons. I've counseled couples in my office and sat with men at the shelter whose marriages fell apart. I know the big principles. And I still missed the small ones, for a simple reason: bids don't announce themselves.
Nobody says, "I am now making an emotional bid for connection, please respond." They say, "Look at that bird." They say it while you're tired, or reading, or thinking about a problem at work. And because they're small, you assume they're unimportant.
But they're not small to the person making them. Every bid carries a quiet question underneath: Do you see me? Am I worth turning toward? When we miss it once, it's nothing. When we miss it for years, the other person eventually stops asking. And that, I've learned, is how a lot of marriages go cold — not in a blowup, but in a slow silence where one person simply quit bidding.
The Old Wisdom Behind It
Scripture has always been more interested in small faithfulness than big gestures. "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much" (Luke 16:10). Paul tells the Philippians to look not only to their own interests but to the interests of others (Philippians 2:4). That's a bid-response theology if I've ever heard one.
The Desert Fathers had a saying that has stuck with me: our life and our death are with our neighbor. They didn't mean the abstract neighbor. They meant the brother in the next cell who wanted to talk when you wanted to pray. The spiritual life, for them, was made real in exactly those inconvenient, ordinary interruptions.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing about Christian community in Life Together, said the first service we owe one another is to listen. Not to fix. Not to advise. To listen. A turned-toward response to a bid is really just that — a small act of listening.
"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much." — Luke 16:10
What I Do Now
I'm not a model husband. But I've changed a few things, and they've made a real difference in my marriage, and honestly, in how I show up for my kids and grandkids too.
I put the phone face-down at the table. Most of the bids I missed, I missed while looking at a screen. That one change alone probably doubled my turn-toward rate.
I learned to respond small. Turning toward doesn't require a long conversation. It can be "Oh wow, where?" and actually looking out the window. It takes three seconds. That's the whole cost.
When I can't engage, I say so kindly. "I want to hear this — give me five minutes to finish this email?" is still turning toward. It tells the other person the bid landed.
I started practicing it on purpose. For one week I kept a little tally — bids I caught, bids I missed. It was humbling. It was also the fastest way I've found to actually build the habit. I've turned that exercise into a tool on this site called The Turning-Toward Practice.
Your Turn
Here's what I'd ask you to try this week. Pick one person — your spouse, a kid, a coworker, a friend. For the next seven days, watch for their small attempts to connect. The comment, the sigh, the text, the "hey, look at this." And when you catch one, turn toward it. Look up. Say something back. Three seconds.
At the end of the week, ask yourself honestly: how many did I catch, and how many did I miss?
I still think about that cardinal. I'd give a lot to go back and look up. But I can't. What I can do is look up the next time. And so can you.
Who in your life has been bidding for your attention — and what have you been saying back?