The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships
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8. If this person can’t tell what I need, I typically withdraw.
9. I often find this person too busy to be emotionally available to me.
10. It’s hard for this person to tell what I need or want from him or her.
11. This person often takes the focus off me and puts it onto him- or herself.
12. I often feel excluded by this person.
13. My needs are neglected in this relationship.
14. I get mad when I don’t get the attention I need from this person.
15. When I feel let down by this person, I let him or her know it in no uncertain terms.
16. I can take just so much of being ignored by this person, and then I blow up.
17. I believe in strongly and assertively asking for what I need from this person.
18. I often find myself becoming irritable with this person.
19. I get so frustrated because I have to demand what I need from this person.
20. I get angry because I don’t get the emotional support I need from this person.
21. I often feel irritated that this person isn’t on my side.
22. I have to let this person know that he or she isn’t being a team player.
23. I just can’t seem to get close to this person.
24. I have trouble getting this person to listen to me.
25. I have trouble getting this person to talk to me.
26. I have trouble getting this person to trust me.
27. I find it difficult to get this person to open up to me.
28. This person won’t share his or her true feelings with me.
SCORING
For all items, calculate your score as follows:
SA = 2
A = 1
N = 0
D = –1
SD = –2
First, consider items 1 to 12, which show how reticent you are at bidding. If you scored 6 or greater, you’re bidding in a way that tends to keep your needs hidden and unknown. You have a tendency to be unclear in stating what you need from this person. This can be a problem in the relationship because the other person may feel he or she has to be a mind reader to understand what you need. A score lower than 6 means that you’re more direct. This is better for your relationship, because you have the ability to state clearly what you need from this person.
Next consider items 13 to 22, which reveal how forceful you are at bidding. If you scored 6 or greater, you may be expressing so much anger in your bidding that you’re pushing the other person away. This could be the result of your past frustration with this relationship, or it could be an enduring characteristic of your personality. Either way, this can be a problem in the relationship because your bids may sound more like criticism or righteous indignation. A score lower than 6 means that you are not overly forceful in expressing what you need from this person. This is better for your relationship because it’s easier for the other person to hear and understand what you need.
Finally, consider items 23 to 28. These items concern the issue of trust, which can be an area of concern in any relationship, but may be particularly relevant to adult-child relationships. If you scored 4 or more on these six items, you may need to do more to win this person’s trust. One of the best ways to do this is to concentrate more on responding to the other person’s bids, rather than trying to get the other person to respond to you. If you scored less than 4, you probably have a high level of trust in this relationship.
Responding to Bids
1. My need for independence is such that I find this person cloying and smothering.
2. I often feel like running away when this person asks for my attention.
3. I really find it hard to sit and listen to this person.
4. My mind wanders when this person talks.
5. When this person gets overly emotional, I don’t want to be with him or her.
6. I think that if this person is feeling sad, he or she should keep it private.
7. I wish that this person took care of his or her own needs more and relied on me less.
8. When I am busy, I resent being interrupted by this person.
9. I need my own personal space without this person expecting me to take care of him or her.
10. I often resent being bothered by this person when I am trying to concentrate.
11. I will avoid this person when he or she is overly needy.
12. I don’t usually notice what this person is feeling.
13. I seem to be continually disappointing this person.
14. I never seem to know what to say to this person when he or she approaches me.
15. I have a lot of trouble emotionally supporting this person.
16. I try to notice this person’s emotional state.
17. I will often ask this person questions about how they are.
18. I generally like meeting this person’s needs.
19. I enjoy listening to this person talk.
20. It is important for me to be there for this person.
21. I am usually responsive when this person needs my time and attention.
22. I can tell when this person is upset and I respond to it.
23. When this person is worried or scared I am usually comforting.
24. When this person has suffered a setback or loss I am understanding and helpful.
25. When this person wants to just talk I am usually available.
26. When this person asks for my time and attention, I tend to be annoyed.
27. Lately I tend to feel crabby when this person is near me.
28. I get stressed out by this person’s constant need for attention.
29. I often feel critical of this person’s behavior.
30. I find myself being angry when this person wants to have long conversations.
31. This person tends to make me impatient with him or her.
32. This person needs too much from me.
SCORING
For all items, calculate your score as follows:
SA = 2
A = 1
N = 0
D = –1
SD = –2
For items 1 to 15, a total score of 8 or more means that you typically turn away from this person’s bids. A score of 7 or lower means that you do not typically turn away from this person’s bids, nor are you put off by this person’s expressed needs.
For items 16 to 25, a total score of 6 or more means that you typically turn toward this person’s bids. A total score of 5 or less means that you do not typically turn toward this person’s bids.
For items 26 to 32, a total score of 4 or more means that you typically turn against this person’s bids. A total score of 3 or less means that you do not typically turn against this person’s bids.
Exercise: Create a Love Map for People Close to You
To download a PDF of the following exercise, click here.
This exercise is based on a similar activity for spouses that appears in my book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. “Love map” is a term I use for that part of your brain where you store all the relevant information about a loved one’s life. It’s based on the idea that being familiar with the details of one another’s lives can help you have happier, more stable relationships. I believe this is true in marriage as well as other close relationships. Whether you’re relating to your spouse, children, friends, relatives, or coworkers, the more you know about their daily experiences, feelings, and preferences, the easier it will be to turn toward them and connect emotionally.
The goal of this exercise is to answer the following questionnaire as the other person would. In this way, you create a love map for somebody to whom you’re close or would like to be closer. You can do it alone, but it’s also fun to do together, with the other person completing a map of your life as you complete a map of his or hers. Don’t think of the exercise as a competition—that’s not helpful. Instead, think of it as a game you can play together to benefit your relationship.
You may also want to return to this exercise at times over the course of your relationship. You could do it each year on one of your birthdays, for example, to help you stay up-to-date with important changes you’re both going through.
1. Favorite meal:
2. Special hobbies and interests:
3. Two closest friends:
4. Worst enemy or rival:
5. Two people most admired:
6. Favorite movie:
7. Favorite TV shows:
8. Favorite kind of animal:
9. Ideal vacation destination:
10. Favorite sports to watch and follow:
11. First thing this person would buy if he or she won the lottery:
12. One thing this person would like to change about you:
13. One thing you could do to improve your relationship with this person:
14. Favorite types of clothes to wear:
15. Least favorite relative:
16. Favorite relative:
17. Favorite holiday:
18. Least favorite holiday:
19. Ideal job:
20. Favorite way to spend evenings at home:
21. Favorite kind of books:
22. Favorite musical group, composer, or instrument:
23. Favorite ways to spend weekends:
24. Toughest problem this person has faced:
25. Favorite restaurants:
26. Favorite magazine:
27. Places or events this person would find most uncomfortable:
28. Most comforting pastime when sick:
29. Saddest life event:
30. Worst life event:
31. Happiest life event:
32. Favorite way to exercise:
33. Ideal birthday present:
34. Two worst fears or disaster scenarios:
35. Best recent day:
36. Worst recent day:
37. Two things that make this person very angry:
38. Current stresses or worries:
39. Best parts of this person’s current job or school life:
40. Worst parts of this person’s current job or school life:
41. Favorite way to spend time with friends:
42. Favorite way to get over being sad:
43. Best vacation this person ever had:
44. Favorite way to get your attention:
45. Two reasons this person is proudest of himself or herself:
46. Gift this person would give to you for your birthday:
47. Fondest unrealized dream:
48. Activity that makes this person feel most competent:
49. Personal improvements this person wants to make in his or her life:
50. Secret ambition:
Better Bids Ahead
Once you become more conscious of your bidding process and how it works in particular relationships, you’ll notice opportunities for connection that you’ve never seen before. You may also become more aware of missed opportunities—times when you wish you could connect emotionally, but it’s just not working out.
Through years of observational research, my colleagues and I have been able to pinpoint several common behavioral patterns that keep people from forming closer bonds. We’ve also identified ways to change those patterns and make your bidding more successful. That’s what you’ll read about in chapter 3.
Through my observational research, I have learned a great deal about the way people succeed and fail in their bids for emotional connection. In this chapter you’ll read about six key problems I call the “bid busters.” These are patterns of behavior that repeatedly show up among those who have trouble bidding or responding to bids for connection. See if you recognize these habits as barriers to connection in your own relationships. If so, you can try some of the simple, practical remedies I recommend for overcoming these obstacles.
1. Being Mindless Rather Than Mindful
Most people don’t get married, have children, make friends, or take jobs with the intention of allowing these relationships to fail. And yet that’s what often happens—simply because people don’t pay enough attention to the emotional needs of others. They’re not acting mindlessly because they want to be mean; they’re just temporarily caught up in their own concerns and not focusing on the people around them.
But if you don’t pay attention, you don’t connect. And if you don’t connect, you wind up operating on the principle that your partner, your friend, or your coworker is not going to be there for you. That, in turn, starts a cascade of negative interactions—including criticism, defensiveness, attacking, and withdrawing—all of which eventually destroy the relationship.
Being mindful, on the other hand, leads to the formation of stable, satisfying relationships. When you’re mindful, you notice other people’s bids and you respond to them. You can shift attention from your own concerns to the concerns of others. In doing so, you learn to understand what other people are feeling, and you’re able to feel those same emotions at the same time. You can be “in the moment” with another person, focusing on your shared awareness and your shared experience. You have the sense that you’re on a journey of discovery together. It’s a creative process of revealing your life stories to each other. These stories unfold every day when people are mindful of one another.
Such encounters are akin to the type of “optimal experience” that the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly describes in his book Flow (Harper & Row, 1990). During such experiences, “concentration is so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant or to worry about problems,” he writes. “Self-consciousness disappears and the sense of time becomes distorted. An activity that produces such experiences is so gratifying that people are willing to do it for its own sake, with little concern for what they will get out of it.”
Sounds a bit like falling in love, doesn’t it? Perhaps that’s because romance is the kind of bond to which people are most willing to apply this type of mindful focus. But achieving a comparable kind of connection is possible with friends, relatives, and coworkers as well—as long as you’re willing to give your full attention to another person and his or her feelings.
What typically prevents people from achieving such mindfulness in their relationships? I believe it’s the choices they make to focus instead on other priorities. For example, a husband and wife may be putting so much thought into keeping the kids busy, remodeling their home, and acquiring stuff that they have no energy left for the primary relationship in their lives. It’s not that they don’t talk to one another. It’s that all their conversations concern things like the kids’ soccer schedule, the basement remodeling project, and how to get the best price on a new SUV. There’s never time in their day to just check in with each other; their minds are always focused on the family’s agenda of accomplishment and acquisition.
I’ve also seen people’s career identities get in the way of their ability to be present in their relationships. It’s a problem particularly common among people in professional roles that reward them for their objectivity, intellectual prowess, and emotional distance. While such qualities may be highly valued in boardrooms and surgical suites, they can be obstacles to emotional intimacy. A neurosurgeon I had as a client is one example. All day long in his professional life, people relied on him for his highly objective, clinical analyses of life-or-death situations. And when he came home at the end of the day, he found it hard to shed this persona. I once heard his wife ask him, “How do you think we’re doing—as a couple?” And he responded with a long-winded, highly accurate evaluation. Trouble was, he had misread her question. She wanted his reassurance, support, and affection—not a clinical assessment. Consequently, she bu
rst into tears and ran from the room, which left him clearly puzzled. “I can never do enough to please her,” he told me.
This man’s problem wasn’t incompetence, however. In previous evaluations (including use of the Emotional Communication Game on this page), he had shown himself to be quite skillful at reading her emotions. His problem was that he was so stuck in the role of the objective, professional expert that he was oblivious to her emotional need in that moment. He was operating on automatic pilot. He wasn’t being mindful of what her bid was all about.
What’s the antidote to such mindlessness? Simply put, it has to do with goal setting. You have to ask yourself: What is my main goal in this relationship? Is it to accomplish tasks and acquire things? Is it to prove that I’m always right? Always powerful? Or is it to build intimacy and understanding—that is, emotional connection? If your goal is emotional connection, the steps we’ve outlined throughout this book will help. But you’ve also got to bring your willingness to focus on being with each other’s feelings in the moment. You’ve got to be willing to ask, “What am I after in this moment? Faced with the choice of turning away, turning against, or turning toward, which choice will take me closer to my goal?”
One way to enhance your mindfulness in relationships is to become a “collector of emotional moments.” It’s a term I first learned from my friend Ross Parke, a psychologist and the author of many books on child development. Over an exceptionally fine dinner conversation one night, Ross explained to me that he had come to think of his life as a string of pearls in which each pearl was a moment just like the one we were having—where we felt totally present and were connecting with each other on a deep and meaningful level. He said that he had decided to make a conscious effort to collect moments like these. By doing so, he was becoming more mindful in his relationships and they were growing stronger as a result.
I have since learned that each of us can become a collector of emotional moments. The key is to look for and celebrate those moments in which you connect with another person on a feeling level. Such moments usually begin by noticing an emotional expression as a bid for connection. You hear something a person says, or you see a facial expression or gesture, that reveals their happiness, sadness, anger, fear, contempt, or disgust. Once you notice it, you let this person know with your words, expressions, or gestures that you understand how they’re feeling. Your demonstration of understanding provides a bridge for emotional connection and paves the way to a deeper, more meaningful relationship. It’s that simple. Emotional moments can be shared with your spouse, family members, friends, coworkers—even the checker at the hardware store.