I discussed Bids and Turning in my last post about the teachings of psychologist John Gottman. Another one of Gottman's teachings has to do with the emotional bank account, a concept I'd like to talk about today. You can probably anticipate the basic concept, but it has some surprising implications for your relationships.

The concept of the emotional bank account is modeled after your financial bank account. We all know that we must continually make deposits into our bank accounts. If we don't, we will soon find ourselves overdrawn and in deep financial difficulties. The same is true of your emotional bank account. By turning toward your partner many times and in many ways throughout the day, you are making deposits into the emotional bank account. Turning away or turning against your partner depletes the bank account and causes you to experience relational difficulties. Think about ways that you can build up that bank account so that you will have a surplus when you most need it and not experience those relational overdraft fees!

One not-very-surprising premise is that you must have positives in your relationship to counteract the negatives. The surprising thing, however, is that it takes more positives to counteract negatives during times of apparent peace than during times of conflict. Let me explain. If you and your partner are arguing or in the middle of some other kind of tense situation, the expectation that one or the other person will be negative is understood. Research claims that it takes five positives to counteract a negative in the heat of conflict. And if you have been making regular contributions to your emotional bank account you will hopefully have built up a reserve to tide you over during times of conflict.

If, however, you say or do something negative during times of relative peace, the ratio changes. Researchers have argued that a negative that comes unexpectedly and catches the partner by surprise requires 20 positives to counteract it. An unexpected nasty remark or hurtful behavior, when the other person thinks things are going along smoothly, will cost you dearly. Bank penalties, interest, fees, the whole market crashing around your very feet!

Hopefully, you can see that this emotional bank account needs daily deposits, few withdrawals, and a lot of attention to make your relationship stable - and enjoyable! The deposits don't have to be grandiose gestures (although flowers, a date night, or a favorite meal couldn't hurt), but small acts of kindness throughout the day, an attitude of positive regard towards each other, and the willingness to give your partner the benefit of the doubt when things are rocky!

Over the next few posts, I will be discussing some of the findings of Dr. John Gottman. Gottman is a Professor Emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington, and with his wife Dr. Julie Schwartz, now heads a nonprofit research institute, the Gottman Institute. Thirty years ago, Dr. Gottman began studying couples through the University of Washington to try to understand what works and what doesn't work in relationships. He opened a laboratory where couples came and spent time together, and there he videotaped, observed, recorded and analyzed their interactions, emotions and microexpressions. In Gottman's work, he was able to predict with 90% accuracy which newlywed couples would remain married and which ones would divorce within four to six years. He was also able to predict longer marital survival rates with high accuracy.

Out of this research came some important findings about what it takes to have a successful relationship. Gottman calls the two types of couples "Masters" and "Disasters." The Disasters are those couples who either divorce or stay together for the sake of the children or some other reason, but are not happy. The Masters of relationships are those who stay together and are "relatively happy."

One of the most important findings from these studies was that how a couple responds to each other in the early moments of an interaction are great predictors of success or failure in the relationship. Gottman calls these interactions "bids" and "turning." A person is constantly making bids to his/her partner - bids for affection, attention, assistance, information - consciously or unconsciously, throughout the entire day. How the partner chooses to respond is the thing that separates the Masters from the Disasters.

Let's say that a partner runs into the house and exclaims about a beautiful sunset, visible just outside the door. The other partner has three choices as to how to respond. Gottman calls these responses "turning toward," "turning away," and "turning against." In the case of the sunset, "turning toward" the partner would mean a response such as "Wow, let's go outside and look at it!" "Turning away" might just be ignoring the partner's bid or continuing a project and not paying any attention to the words. "Turning against," however, might be an angry response such as "Can't you see I'm busy right now? Why do you always interrupt me?"

In Gottman's studies, the Masters of relationships responded to 96 percent of their partner's bids, while the Disasters responded to only 30 percent. It is obvious that these small, seemingly insignificant moments are the building blocks for a healthy, intimate relationship.

Pay attention over the next couple of weeks to how you respond to your partner's bids. Do you stop what you are doing and really listen? I know that my husband can't listen if he's reading the newspaper while I'm talking, so I will jokingly remind him to "listen with your eyes!" See what a difference it makes in your relationship if you truly "turn towards" your partner this week.

Terry McNichols is a Marriage and Family Therapist who also blogs at Grace and Gravity and Are We There Yet?

The aftermath of the Haiti earthquake is on all of our minds this past couple of weeks. The earthquake exacerbated the already poor country's ills beyond our limited ability to comprehend! Jennifer wrote about their family response to the tragedy. What a great learning experience for children to participate in the relief efforts.

But poverty in the world is not limited to those areas that are experiencing natural disasters. They do get a lot of our attention, but we need to remain aware that poverty is a world problem - all the time! After the Vietnam War we were part of a church group that sponsored several Mien refugee families from Laos. At the time we signed up, we had just added our third child to our already- busy family and I wasn't sure we would be able to be involved deeply. How would we juggle the many balls we already had in the air and add this new commitment?

What I wasn't prepared for was the impact this involvement would have on our family. Over the years we became friends with many Laotians - first in teaching them the ways of the U.S. - then eating in their homes, loving their children and extended families, helping them find jobs, and expanding our own view of the world. Rather than taking time away from family to "serve," our entire family was a part of the team.

My husband and I have just returned from a trip to El Salvador. This was my 4th trip to the village in El Salvador that we support through our church's involvement with Agros International. It's called "Journey with a Village" and our team spent time working alongside the people, playing games, laughing, eating, sharing Veggie Tales movies, holding babies, and witnessing a signing ceremony as two more village families gain ownership of the land they have worked hard to own! It was an amazing experience. Check out this slide show of one of our trips!

This relationship with El Salvador has come about after our children have all grown. We would love to have shared this kind of trip as a family, but that wasn't possible for us at the time we were raising our children. If it is a possibility for you, do consider taking your school-aged or older children along on this kind of adventure! What an amazing experience it would be for them and what a great way for your family to talk about the world and its problems. It also helps children gain more perspective on material possessions and our place in the global economy.

Have you, or anyone you know, undertaken such an adventure? If so, please let us know! I'm very curious to hear how a family with older children who could volunteer alongside their parents found such an experience as a family and as individuals.

If a family trip isn't possible for you, please do consider other ways that your family can get involved locally. Don't look on "serving" as something you do without your family - find a way to involve everyone.

Terry McNichols is a Marriage and Family Therapist who also blogs at Grace and Gravity and Are We There Yet?