Don McMinn

Individuals are complex. And when two people are in relationship with one another, complications become exponential. 

John and Julie Gottman offer us help.

The Gottmans are psychologists who run The Gottman Institute in New York City. Their work, based on scientific studies, is devoted to helping couples build and maintain loving, healthy relationships. What they have discovered is significant. Their work focuses on the marriage relationship but their insights are beneficial for all relationships.  

The following is taken from an article titled “Masters of Love,” by Emily Esfanhani Smith, published June 12, 2014 in The Atlantic. In her article, Smith writes about John Gottman’s theory of responding to relational “bids.”

“[In one of his studies] Gottman wanted to know more about how the masters [happily married people] created that culture of love and intimacy, and how the disasters [unhappily married people] squashed it. He designed a lab on the University of Washington campus to look like a beautiful bed and breakfast retreat. He invited 130 newlywed couples to spend the day at this retreat and watched them as they did what couples normally do on vacation: cook, clean, listen to music, eat, chat, and hang out. And Gottman made a critical discovery in this study—one that gets at the heart of why some relationships thrive while others languish.

“Throughout the day, partners would make requests for connection, what Gottman calls ‘bids.’ For example, a husband who is a bird enthusiast notices a goldfinch fly across the yard. He might say to his wife, ‘Look at that beautiful bird outside!’ He’s not just commenting on the bird here: he’s requesting a response from his wife—a sign of interest or support—hoping they’ll connect, however momentarily, over the bird.

“The wife now has a choice. She can respond by either ‘turning toward’ or ‘turning away’ from her husband. Though the bird-bid might seem minor and silly, it can actually reveal a lot about the health of the relationship. The husband thought the bird was important enough to bring it up in conversation and the question is whether his wife recognizes and respects that.

“People who turned toward their partners in the study responded by engaging the bidder, showing interest and support in the bid. Those who didn’t—those who turned away—would not respond or respond minimally and continue doing whatever they were doing, like watching TV or reading the paper. Sometimes they would respond with overt hostility, saying something like, ‘Stop interrupting me, I’m reading.’

“These bidding interactions had profound effects on marital well-being. Couples who had divorced after a six-year follow up only had ‘turn-toward bids’ 33 percent of the time. Only three in ten of their bids for emotional connection were met with intimacy. The couples who were still together after six years had ‘turn-toward bids’ 87 percent of the time. Nine times out of ten, they were meeting their partner’s emotional needs.

“By observing these types of interactions, Gottman can predict with up to 94 percent certainty whether couples—straight or gay, rich or poor, childless or not—will be broken up, together and unhappy, or together and happy several years later. Much of it comes down to the spirit couples bring to the relationship. Do they bring kindness and generosity; or contempt, criticism, and hostility?”

Simple, isn’t it. Our spouse, children, friends, and coworkers make “bids” for our time and attention. When we properly respond to those bids (and it usually doesn’t take a lot of time), relationships are nourished. When we continually ignore the bids, relationships suffer.

Mary, I apologize for being so emotionally tone-death for most of our marriage. The next 50 years will be different.

I thank Matt Toggle, pastor of Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, for teaching me the following lesson.

When preaching a sermon on Philippians 4:4  (“Rejoice in the Lord, always; again I will say rejoice.”), he started with a provocative personal anecdote. He said he had a confession to make to the church. Something he had been doing since he was a teenager, but had never told anyone until he told his family the past week and now wanted to tell the church.

That got everyone’s attention.

He said, “Since I was a teenager, whenever I see or hear something that touches me deeply, I raise my hands for a few seconds to express a heart of rejoicing. I’m sure my family has seen me do it often, but they never ask what I was doing. Now they, and you, will know.”

Matt’s story touched me deeply, and I’ve adopted his approach.

Sometimes, in the course of life, we encounter the numinous – something that has a strong spiritual or emotional quality, that is a mixture of awe, transcendence, wonder, and mystery. It can happen during worship, or standing in an ancient cathedral, viewing the Northern Lights, or listening to a deeply moving piece of music. It often catches you by surprise and may vanish quickly.

When I have these moments, I’m going to gently raise my hands for a few seconds to acknowledge the experience and rejoice in the Lord.

In the past several weeks…

• • • I was in my study with Claire, my 2 year old granddaughter, listening to her babble, when suddenly she looked at me and clearly said “Papa, I love you.” My hands went up.
    • When watching a YouTube video of the 2Cellos playing Gabriel’s Oboe, my hands went up.
    • During worship, we sang the phrase “Hallelujah, what a Savior; hallelujah, what a Friend.” and I was seized by the thought. (Interestingly, we sang the same song in the second service, but it didn’t have the same effect.)

I’m not doing it for self-aggrandizement; it’s simply a physical expression of gratitude for something wonderful that is stirring my soul.

When we have thoughts and feelings of gratitude and joy, it’s helpful, appropriate and right to physically express them.

 

When my grandson Benjamin was five years old, we were arm-wrestling on the bed. Benjamin took a short break, crawled to the corner of the bed, and whispered a prayer, “God, give me strength to beat Papa.” When he returned to the tournament, I bowed my head and prayed, “God, give me strength to beat Benjamin.” He went back to his prayer corner and prayed, “God, don’t listen to Papa’s prayer.”

Benjamin always wins our arm-wrestling contests (as well as thumb-wars), so hopefully his faith in God and the efficacy of prayer was affirmed. But the incident did disclose an interesting conundrum. How does God negotiate conflicting prayer requests? For instance, organizers of a Fourth of July parade pray for good weather while local farmers are praying for rain to end the drought. 

Abraham Lincoln spoke of this mystery in his second presidential inaugural speech—and also proffered an answer. 

On March 6, 1865 (about five weeks before the Civil War ended), Lincoln addressed a divided nation. In his speech he said, “Both (North and South) read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

There’s a higher principle at work, and Lincoln expressed it well—the Almighty has his own purposes.

This should not discourage us from praying—after all, the Bible teaches “by prayer and petition, make your requests to God”; but we’re wise to frame our requests knowing that “our God is in heaven, he does what he pleases.” 

We wouldn’t want it any other way.

When praying, I avoid prejudicial requests. I don’t pray that UT Austin will beat Oklahoma in their annual football game, though I may pray for the safety of the players. I don’t pray about the weather; it is totally controlled by God. I avoid giving God advice, or telling him what he should do. And, I don’t pray for his aid if it might harm someone else.

Also, my prayers are shorter than they used to be. Ecclesiastes teaches, “Don’t be hasty in bringing matters before God. After all, God is in heaven, and you are here on earth. So let your words be few.” Sometimes, long public prayers seem unnecessary. (Relative to long public prayers, someone once said, “If your prayer is short, I will pray with you. If it is long, I will pray for you. If it is extremely long, I will pray against you.”) When praying, sincerity and intent matter much more than word count.

Our best option is to embrace the sovereignty of God and keep our prayers simple. I often pray, “God, be God in my life and in the lives of those I love.”

We’ve often heard that first impressions are important, and they are. But don’t neglect final impressions because we are also highly influenced by endings. Regardless of how an experience started and played out, we remember most how it ended. 

There’s probably a more tactful example of this idea, but this anecdote—involving colonoscopies—is telling. The experiment was conducted by Redelmeier and Kahneman. 

“In the late 1980s, colonoscopies were painful, and not merely dreaded. The discomfort of the procedure dissuaded people from returning for another one. By 1990, colon cancer was killing sixty thousand people every year in the United States. Many of its victims would have survived had their cancer been detected at an early stage. Was it possible to alter their memory of the experience so that they might forget how unpleasant it was?

“To answer the question, Redelmeier ran an experiment on roughly seven hundred people over a period of a year. One group of patients had the colonoscope yanked out of their rear ends at the end of their colonoscopy without ceremony; the other group felt the tip of the scope lingering in their rectums for an extra three minutes. Those extra three minutes were not pleasant. They were merely less unpleasant than the other procedure. The patients in the first group were on the receiving end of an old-fashioned wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am colonoscopy; those in the second group enjoyed a more subtle ending. The sum total of pain experienced by the second group was, however, greater because the scope was in the body longer.

“An hour after the procedure, the researchers entered the recovery room and asked the patients to rate their experience. Those who had been give the less unhappy ending remembered less pain than did the patients who had not. Human beings who had never imagined that they might prefer more pain to less could nearly all be fooled into doing so. As Redelmeier put it, ‘Last impressions can be lasting impressions’” (from The Undoing Project, Michael Lewis, page 235). 

How can we take advantage of this insight? 

When planning an event, end with a nice, feel-good experience.

Several years ago I took 36 friends on a trip to Europe. On the last night of the trip we were staying in a convent in Rome. I had arranged for a professional tenor to sing a concert—just for our group—in the chapel prior to a four-course meal. It was an incredible ending to the trip; people are still talking about it. No one mentions the fact that it rained that last day in Rome, which made touring difficult. The nice ending of the trip trumped previous inconveniences.  

When an unfortunate event occurs, its impact can be minimized by orchestrating a positive ending. 

In 1989 Lexus introduced its first car, the flagship LS400. Their slogan was “the relentless pursuit of perfection.” But the car had flaws and all 8,000 vehicles were recalled. The cruise control failed to disengage, the plastic cover around the high-mounted rear brake light warped, and a poor connection between the alternator and battery could cause the battery to run down. 

This could have rendered Lexus stillborn—it’s first car was flawed. But the company took full responsibility for the problems and its dealers did the repair work at no charge to the customer. But here’s what made the big difference: An older couple had bought their LS400 in a major city and drove it to their small town which was 500 miles from the nearest dealership. When Lexus heard about the dilemma they flew mechanics to the small town and repaired the car at the couple’s home. The story went viral and became a memorable legend—“Lexus will always take care of their customers.”  

Think carefully about how you end all relational encounters: a conversation with a co-worker; a lunch meeting; a consulting contract; a worship service; an athletic event; a planning retreat, or a dinner party. A well-orchestrated ending can make a significant difference.