Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Your marriage › Answering bids
Look up, turn toward, respond. The weather remark is not about the weather.
When someone puts out a greeting, the instruction is to return it better, or at least return it (Quran 4:86). A passing remark from your spouse is a greeting of a kind, and it asks for the same courtesy.
النساء
وَإِذَا حُيِّيتُم بِتَحِيَّةࣲ فَحَيُّواْ بِأَحۡسَنَ مِنۡهَآ أَوۡ رُدُّوهَآۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ كَانَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيۡءٍ حَسِيبًا
But [even in battle] when you [believers] are offered a greeting, respond with a better one, or at least return it: God keeps account of everything
Qur’an 4:86read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Gottman calls an offhand remark a bid for connection, and what counts is whether you turn toward it or let it pass. Answering the small bid costs seconds and is what steadily accumulates into trust.
John M. Gottman; Nan Silver (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Crown
Principle 3, Turn Toward Each Other Instead of Away. Romance is built in the ordinary moment when one partner makes a small bid and the other turns toward it. The running total of those turnings, not the grand gesture, is what fills the emotional bank account.
Strength of evidence: seen more than once. Replicated observational or longitudinal work, not tested against a control.
Small bids answered accumulate into the felt security a bond is built on.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Turn Toward Instead of Away; answering a bid for connection.