Quote · The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Best Relationship Advice That Everyone Needs to Hear (From the World’s #1 Love Researchers)
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Turning Toward: The Micro-Moments That Predict Divorce or Forever
At 1:25:40 · chapter starts 1:24:50
John Gottman introduces the concept of 'turning toward' — discovered by his graduate student Janice Driver in the Love Lab apartment footage — by describing the small, often overlooked moments when one partner reaches for the other's attention or engagement. The cameras captured not just the bid but the response: turn toward (acknowledge warmly), turn away (ignore completely), or turn against (respond with irritability). [1] — John Gottman "Couples who later divorced were turning toward each other's bids for connection only 33% of the time — happy couples did it 86% of the time…" 1:31:30 When Driver went back and looked at couples who had divorced six years after the study, their average rate of turning toward bids had been just 33%. Happy, stable couples? Eighty-six percent. Julie illustrates turning away with a vivid example: ignoring your partner calling from the kitchen to ask where the big fork is. She then uses a sea anemone as a metaphor — poke it once and it retracts; poke it again before it's recovered, and it may not open up again. Mel connects this to the episode's broader lesson: it's not the big fights that determine a relationship's fate, it's the accumulated texture of a thousand tiny moments.
Researcher Helen Fisher found that being in love has no shelf life — couples can remain genuinely in love for 35, 40, even 50 years.
