The Emotional Bank Account

This week’s post touches on a concept that I just LOVE sharing with couples and, truly, any client because it’s such a great mental image and easy to understand and apply:

Gottman’s Emotional Bank Account.

If you’ve been with me for the past few weeks, you know that John and Julie Gottman are a husband and wife therapist and relationship researcher team. They are prolific in their research output and head up The Gottman Institute where much of this information is transmitted out to the public.

Love them.

Anyway, from their research, the concept of the emotional bank account was born.

The emotional bank account refers to the ratio of positive to negative interactions that couples have. Positive interactions typically describe turning toward your partner’s bids for connection while negative ones generally describe turning away from your partner’s bid for connection. It can also describe kind things that you do or rituals of connection that you engage in versus asking something from your partner that they don’t really want to do or give. It does not have to be a fight or be explosive to be a withdrawal from the emotional bank account.

Just like a real life bank account, you want your balance to be in the positive. Zero or negative is not a good space for you or for your relationship. Emotionally speaking, when the account is in the positive, you and your partner may feel connected, loving, calm, willing to give the benefit of the doubt, and like your relationship has an ease about it. When the account is in the negative, you and your partner may feel: sad, disconnected, as thought you’re growing apart, lonely, unwilling to give benefit of the doubt, and like your relationship is just hard.

 Ideally, when things are good in your relationship, you’d like to have a ratio of 20:1 in your emotional bank account, or 5 positive experiences for every 1 negative experience.

When things are tense or not so great in your relationship, accounting for that tension that already exists, you still want to have a balance of 5:1 or 5 positive experiences to every 1 negative experience.

SO if withdrawals are easy to make in your account, how can you make deposits in your account to boost that ratio?

Like making real money, it takes doing, BUT it doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. (Again, everyone loves Lloyd Dobler, not everyone needs to raise a boombox over their head outside of their beloved’s window).

To create deposits in your partner’s emotional bank account, you can:

·        tell your partner something you appreciate about them

·        Listen to your partner, empathize with them, and validate their feelings

·        Support one another’s dreams

·        Be mindful of your partner’s bids for connection and do your best to turn towards them rather than turning away from them

·        In an effort to do the above, manage your technology. It’s rare that any of us feel connected when there are phones between us.

·        Work to address an issue without blaming your partner. This invites your partner to join you in the conversation and not become defensive.

·        Spend time being affectionate with one another

·        Ask questions to clarify or show interest in what your partner is saying.

There are a million ways to carry out all of the above, the most important thing is that you’re keeping the emotional bank account top of mind and doing your best to actually do them.

If you and your partner are struggling to make deposits in your emotional bank accounts or find that you keep tipping the ratio into the negative, click the button below and let’s see if we’re a good fit to work together to get your relationship back on track.