Disrupting patterns of disappointment
“The best way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once.”
— Dave Barry, Dave Barry’s Guide to Marriage and/or Sex,
With that opening, I am sure you know there’s a story here! This post is a follow up to “Feelings that persist.” In that post, I wrote about how learned behaviors can cause couples to “resist” emotional exploration in favor of the more practical dealings of day-to-day life. This time, I wanted to explore a different dynamic — why it’s so important to catch seemingly little things that can establish a pattern of disappointment..
Different Communications Styles
Marsha and I have been friends since we were kids, and we’ve only grown closer since we became life partners. Still, we are very different people. Broadly, I am generally more comfortable with concepts, and she is generally much better with details.
In our communications styles, the differences can be very complementary as we interact with others. In general, I think I can add value when we have to step back and look at the big picture to put other people’s perspectives into context. Marsha adds so much value when tending to the very personal gestures that make such a big difference in nurturing relationships.
Within our own relationship, I can offer a lot in problem-solving, but she is aware that I often need some details spelled out clearly or highlighted. Marsha offers a lot in offering emotional support and guidance, but I am aware that she can harbor a lot of feelings inside about certain interactions and often doesn’t voice those feelings until much later.
We know this stuff about each other. However, even with our intimate knowledge of each other, these differences can still lead to misunderstandings and unintended disappointments.
“Married life is like having a conversation with someone who doesn’t speak your language. You think you’re being clear, but all they hear is ‘blah blah blah.’”
— Dave Barry (again)
Missed bids for attention
Let’s start this by saying that the source of this disappointment is 100% my fault.
I missed an important “bid for attention” from Marsha during a very stressful time. Per, Google, this is a definition of the term.
A bid for attention is a gesture or verbal attempt to get affection, attention, or acceptance from another person. Bids can be simple, like a smile or wink, or more complex, like asking for help or advice.
The term "bid for attention" was coined by relationship experts at the Gottman Institute. They believe that how we respond to bids is critical and can build or erode trust. In fact, research by John and Julie Gottman found that the number of times a couple responds to each other's bids can predict if they stay together or separate:
Healthy couples: Respond positively to their partner's bids about 86% of the time
Couples who get divorced: Respond positively to their partner's bids about 33% of the time
This passage from a Certified Gottman therapist resonated with me.
Bids can get tricky, however, and admittedly I sometimes miss more bids than I don’t. Indeed many men struggle in this regard, so it’s important to pay attention. Bids usually have a secondary layer. Call it the difference between text and subtext.
— Zach Brittle, author of the Relationship Alphabet
I didn’t get the subtext, and I didn’t get the text either.
We started 2024 with the unexpected death of Marsha’s mom on January 15th. To mourn, Marsha decided to spend the next 7 weeks hunkered down with her brother at their mom’s family home in Bellevue. (I had to return to Portland occasionally for medical appointments, but I spent most of the time with Marsha and her brother at the family home, too.) The 7 weeks marked the 49 days in Buddhist tradition to allow the soul to prepare for its transition to the spirit world, so the Buddhist funeral service was set for March 2nd.
We learned, about 4 weeks into our time in Bellevue, that my first cousin Amy had passed away. She was the closest cousin to us on my mom’s side of the family, and her death just piled on top of what was already a sad time. Marsha loved Amy, too.
Marsha’s birthday is in March (yes, she’s a Pisces!), and we had talked about celebrating her birthday with friends in Portland once we returned home. In reality, it was revitalizing and repackaging dinner and karaoke plans that we had on the calendar that were canceled because of Marsha’s mom’s death. But this was a bid for attention. Marsha had “bookmarked” this karaoke party in her mind as an important milestone, one that she was really looking forward to. We never talked about a karaoke birthday party explicitly as an important psychological milestone for her, but in hindsight, there were probably many details in this bid for attention that I missed in our interactions.
Missed the big picture too
In addition to missing the little details, I also realized that I missed the big picture, too, which I normally pride myself on.
This year was different and this time was different. The fact that we even talked about celebrating a birthday with a karaoke party was a departure from our normal routine, and I do seem to recall in hindsight even looking forward to it, too.
But then life got in the way.
How did life get in the way?
First, I want to express that this explanation isn’t an excuse. (Perhaps, I will write in a future post about how even our sincerest apologies can fall flat.) As I stated earlier, I missed some seemingly obvious little details, and I missed the big picture. Full stop. Getting back to Dave Barry's quote that I opened this post with, I did miss my wife’s birthday!
I figured I’d draw a timeline here rather than explaining this in too much detail. Around Marsha’s birthday, there were two planned memorial services, an unexpected memorial service, a going-away party, a bout of COVID, and a trip to Hawaii.
The planned memorial services were for Marsha’s mom who passed on January 15th and for my first cousin, Amy, who passed on February 8th. These services were going to be the first and third weekends of March. Unexpectedly, my best college friend's mom passed right before we left Bellevue, and we made a quick trip to LA between the two.
Unfortunately, I must have picked up COVID-19 during that LA trip. While we’d gotten back to Portland in time for a going-away luncheon for friends who were returning to Japan, it turns out I tested positive for COVID the very next day, and we canceled our plans for the week while I isolated and took Legevrio to try to recover.
Fortunately, I was able to recover just in time for cousin Amy’s memorial service in San Diego, which was just a day trip. We had a flight to catch the next day to Hawaii for a trip we’d planned in the wake of earlier events.
We had a great time in Hawaii from March 17th-22nd. This was a good reset, both mentally and physically! Somehow, I was just ready to just move forward and put the beginning of 2024 behind us.
By the time we got home and returned to daily life, I had forgotten about organizing Marsha’s birthday celebration. Marsha did not forget. Ouch.
Disrupting patterns
Life is a series of challenges, and I didn’t conquer this one immediately!
In terms of our emotions, this turned out to be much more than a humorous confluence of events that caused us to miss a birthday and a karaoke party, but rather one more tile in a pattern of disappointment of not meeting her needs.
I remain grateful that Marsha and I are learning together better ways of communicating our needs. This doesn’t come easily and honestly, it isn’t a natural way of communicating. We are having to deconstruct decades of learned patterns of communication to reconstruct better and healthier. The good news is that mistakes bring learning. My key lesson is that while it’s not always possible to detect every bid for attention, the safest thing to do going forward is to just jump on every one I do see!
At a very simple level, I’ve since worked to be more aware of and look for bids of attention. Since then, every time Marsha even hints at karaoke, I try to either reserve it for the future or just get on the phone right then!
One of these just happened last week. We were out at a favorite bar with a friend, and Marsha said she was in the mood for karaoke. I called Voicebox Northwest right then and got us a spot for that night. That friend we were with opted not to join us for karaoke, so we ended up going with our daughter who amped up on caffeine because she said, “I needed to rally because I want to keep getting invited. I am afraid of not getting invited again if I said ‘no’…”
We all had a good time! And of course, beyond karaoke, I continue to work on better seeing other bids for attention, and this is more than fair given how well we know each other’s communication styles.
Why do I write about this?
Truthfully, it’s a bit painful to write about relationship disappointments and my role in creating them. People have started asking me how long it takes to write these articles, and while there isn’t much time I actually spend typing words (there aren’t that many!), there is a lot of self-reflection that has to go into organizing these thoughts for these “A-sides” posts on Sundays.
Still, I have appreciated other authors who write pieces about bids for attention. I personally relate to stories, and I hope mine might help some others who face similar things. I would encourage others to share their stories, too. Feel free to leave any comments below!