This blog is being written as a response to the most frequent request I hear from my coaching clients. This blog is NOT for everyone. This blog is about building loving relationships at home and specifically about building a loving relationship with your bride.
This is the most frequent topic I hear from clients that, seemingly, have it all. They’ve hit it out of the park so to speak AND, yet somehow, they tell me they would trade it all for just a little more LOVE. Here goes…
Everybody knows that when you buy stuff at an auction whether it’s in some country backyard sale or on ebay, the highest bidder always wins. Isn’t it amazing that the same holds true in love.
The happiest husbands know this truth translates at home. Our brides bid for our emotional attention all the time. They deeply want to connect with their man. Their bid can be something small like picking out a movie together or figuring out how to approach the school’s principal with Johnny’s homeroom or homework issue. The bid can also be something BIG. Like talking about why you seem to be coming home later and later and laughing less and less.
Are you laughing less and less, together?
The happy husbands know that how “we” respond to small and large alike, goes a long way toward building a happy home. According to the “man,” Gottman, happy, stable couples have husbands that DISREGARD their wives bids only 19% of the time. The ones headed for divorce disregard the brides bids for connection a staggering 82% of the time. Translation, happy couples turn toward each others emotional bids for connection the vast majority of the time. Unhappy couples don’t come close.
Men, here’s the really sad and tough part of this bid response system. The biggest problem we men have, is HEARING the bid. Most men do NOT blow off their bride 80% of the time, they simply don’t know they’re being bid. It’s really hard to raise and respond when you don’t hear the bid.
Slow down and reflect.
Are you aware of how your bride bids toward you?
How often do you hear the “yearning” in her critical bidding voice vs. blow her off as having another one of those emotional moments?
Are you aware of how to use humor to turn a “gridlocked” bid into a time to laugh at YOU not a time to further loathe her?
Are you aware of multitasking your bride and giving only partial attention to her voice, to her body language, to her tone, to her emotional needs?
Are you the highest bidder at home?
How would your bride respond to your answer above?
John and Julie Gottman have written a number of great books about relationships. I’ve enjoyed them all. I am in the middle of my third and it’s another good one. This one is titled, The Relationship Cure. Check it out, if you want.
Oops, that’s another example of a bid. Do you see how small she may make ’em?
Today, listen for your brides bid and move toward her. Catch yourself turning away and turning against and shut your mouth and instead, open your heart. Listen for the yearning in her request, and act like the man you keep telling yourself you are. REAL men turn toward their bride when it’s NOT easy. REAL men, listen for the yearning and meet it with real strength. Any wimpy guy can use his anger to shut her up, at least for awhile. Anyone, when the heat goes high, can turn away and go outside and blow her off by blowing leaves. Real men fall toward their bride.
Fall again.
Fall toward your bride. Fall toward her bids. Turn toward her request and stop trying to fix her. Listen, empathize, and simply give your most precious commodity…your ATTENTION. Give her all.
Remember, at home, just like at the auction, the highest bidder WINS.
Very cool.
BUILT TO LEAD 