When my dad gets bored, he has a habit of starting to nudge, poke at, or otherwise irritate the person sitting closest to him, usually his wife, daughter, or grandchild. I call these nudges and pokes his “pay attention to me” signals. Dr. Gottman, author of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (Harmony Books, New York, 1999, 2015), would recognize them, too. In fact, his third principle, “Turn Toward Each Other Instead of Away,” relies on recognizing and responding to “bids for attention.”

These little actions, sometimes as small as a facial expression, let us know when our spouse needs or wants something from us. If we train ourselves to recognize and respond to these bids, we’ll be rewarded with a deeper closeness. Dr. Gottman emphasizes that turning toward each other doesn’t require grand gestures or huge investments of time. For me, it can be as simple as going to sit on the couch beside my husband when he invites me to watch a TV show with him instead of staying in my favorite chair.

Immediately after we got married, my husband and I moved eight hundred miles away from our parents. With few relatives and no friends nearby, I had to look to him and he had to look to me for support. It became natural to face both joys and sorrows together.

When our youngest child was stillborn, there was never a question that we would turn to each other for strength and comfort. We’d spent the previous twelve years developing that pattern. We had established a foundation of trust and built on it in big and small ways, so when our world was shaken, the structure of our marriage held firm.

My husband may not nudge or poke at me to show he needs my attention (okay, sometimes he does; he’s a lot like my dad), but I’ve learned to recognize those little bids and answer them by turning toward him. And he does the same for me. Whatever shake up life brings us next, I know we’ll be ready for it together.