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- [00:00]
A
Warning. The following podcast is brought to you by dads who can barely remember where they put their car keys. Welcome to the allprodad podcast.
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B
Hey, welcome to all Pro Dad Podcast. My name is Ted Lowe, and I'm joined today by BJ Foster and Bobby Lewis. Together we have nine kids and way more questions than that. And to dive in, I got a question for you. Have you ever planned something or bought something for your wife with a goal of showing her how much you loved her and it just bombed?
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C
Pretty much every Mother's Day.
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A
Yes. On my 5,000th day of marriage, nothing went according to plan at all.
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B
And we've all been there, right? Everybody listening is going, yeah, I've got my own version of that. There's just times, despite our hearts or despite our efforts, it just doesn't land. So our big question of the week. If it's not these big things that we're obviously not great at, these big occasions, what is it? And the question of the week is, how do I show my wife I love her every day after doing this for a really long time, you guys, working with married couples, I. I've learned that guys, they really do want to love their wives. Well, it's not a hard issue. It's. It can be confusing, and they can be overwhelmed, and they think it's these big, gigantic gestures like flying your wife out of town or making Mother's Day magical. But what research shows is that couples who make it long term don't rely on the big moments. They build connection in small, consistent ones. Dr. John Gottman has spent decades studying thousands of couples, and he says that marriages don't succeed or fail because of massive events, which I love this. They rise or they fall on everyday interactions. I just think that's so powerful. That means the strength of your marriage isn't about perfection. It's about how you respond in the middle of ordinary moments. I just thought that was so relieving in some ways, just to know, hey, it's not the big things, it's the little things.
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C
Oh, I agree. Well, and my wife tested that on our first date. We went, I took her out to a fancy dinner, and I had this whole plan of when the fancy dinner is over with, I'll take her to another fancy place on the water for dessert. And so we got done our meal, and I said, said, I said, hey, do you want to go to the Chart House to get dessert on the water? And. And she was like, actually, what I really want to do is go to the grocery store. Like, I Have to pick a bunch of stuff up. And I'm like, okay. And so we ended up. And she wanted to just see how we would do in the normal. In the everyday stuff.
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B
So this is intentional on her part.
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C
This was intentional, Yeah. I mean, she needed to go, but she was like, well, this will be perfect. We'll just do this. She's like, and the grocery store is going to close, so we're going to have to go do that next. And we went to the grocery store. We had a great time there. And it was. I mean, we had just as much fun there as we did, you know, for the nice dinner. But I think it's just kind of in those ordinary moments, like in the ordinary little things that you do. How much love do you put in them?
- [03:12]
A
Yeah, I think we do get caught up in this idea that the big grand gestures are amazing, like the big fancy dinner or the big trip and all that. But you are totally right, Ted. Like, it's the. The ordinary things, like Dr. Gottman says, that make all the difference. Those little service opportunities. This happened in our house the other day. My wife was having a really busy day. She had audibly said, I'll get to those dishes later. Like, I was working at the table and kind of, you know, doing my thing. And then she just got distracted doing other stuff. And so after I got done working, I just did them because they were in the sink, and no big deal. They're right here. She came out of the room after she was doing something else, and she realized that the sink was empty. And she's. I have not seen her smile that wide in weeks. I'm like, it was just the dishes, but it was just an ordinary moment. It was an ordinary service opportunity. But that made all the difference to her more. If I had taken her out to a fancy dinner that night, she wouldn't have liked that more than the fact that I had helped to do some dishes. And it was simple, right? But it's those little ordinary moments, and they add up. When my wife and I were doing marriage mentoring a couple years ago, we would tell couples who were gonna get married, if you both go into this marriage expecting to give everything and receive nothing, your marriage will probably thrive because you're both going in with, like, this attitude of service. Right? We would call it radical selflessness. And that doesn't mean that you're not supposed to get anything out of marriage. Of course, there's a lot of dynamics in those relationships. But that attitude of radical selflessness where you're taking Ordinary moments. And you're doing something selfless for your wife that is going to provide an environment of service that is going, going to reinforce over and over again, I love you. Not just because I did something fancy and huge and amazing today, but I love you because it's today and I'll do it again tomorrow because I love you because it's today and again and again and again. And it's, it tells her over and over that I care about you so good.
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B
It's craziest moments like that. My wife makes herself tea all the time because, you know, from Atlanta, so you got to have sweet tea all the time. And she was boiling the tea bags and she left it going. And I just went and turned it off. And she comes about five minutes later, she comes running there, oh, I've left the tea on. And she goes, did you turn it off? I said, why, yes, I did. I most certainly did. I am a hero. But it's so funny, I thought, I don't think she had that much heartfelt emotion when I gave her her engagement ring. And so it's, it's, again, it's not these big moments that, you know, the good news is, is love isn't proven in grand gestures. It's built in small, steady ones. So how do we do this, guys? Let's make this super practical. How do we do this?
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A
Well, here's a couple of action steps for you. Number one, try and handle conflict with kindness. There's going to be conflict in your home. There's conflict when people live together and, you know, you and your wife are sharing a home. You're going to have conflict, but handle it with kindness. Here's something that was interesting. You mentioned Dr. John Gottman earlier. Ted Gottman did a six year longitudinal study and he found that he could predict divorce just by observing the first three minutes of a conflict conversation with couples. So the couples who began with negativity were far more likely to get divorced. And so those who began with gentleness and small little expressions of positivity, far more likely to stay happily married. So those first three minutes of conflict are very, very important. Which makes me wonder, you know, what is coming into the room with all this negativity? What does that do in the real world with your wife?
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C
Well, and I think it's important to kind of, for those of you listening to kind of realize that, you know, when Bobby, like when you're talking about negativity, that you're not talking about disagreement. Like, disagreement's fine. But I think it's when you lash out in frustration, when you make personal attacks. Maybe when you're bringing up the past or just kind of doing what you can do to win the argument rather than kind of coming together. But all of this kind of speaks to intent. Like, are you doing what's best? Are you doing the things to try to understand your wife, to move closer to her, or are you just trying to conquer, or are you just trying to use what you can as ammunition in order to win?
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A
Yeah. Well, I guess then that leads us to the other side. On the flip side of that, what happens when you come in with gentleness instead of negativity or positivity instead of the other way?
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B
Yeah, I mean, it's the exact opposite. It's like what Gottman's finding is that couples that come in with, instead of, you know, with lashing out, they come in with, again, like you said, bj, kindness. But I think also keeping things light when you can, full of humor and just being calm, just that piece of it. How do you love her every day? Settle down, you know, be calm and also be curious. When our wives do things that drive us crazy, we stop getting curious, right? Like, we don't. All we know is what we know. And that. That bugged me. I didn't like that. Stop doing that. Don't do it again. And I think it's this thing of just going curious to go, wow, she's wired. Obviously wired differently than me. And really getting curious also will lead to them feeling understood. Like, you're asking me about me and why this was important to me. And it's just never given up this thing of getting to know your spouse because you will never get to know them completely. It's a journey that continually changes.
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C
So just be curious and being grateful. I mean, you know, like Ted, you mentioned, they're wired differently. The fact that they're wired differently shows that they see things that we don't see. So let's be grateful for all the things that the blind spots that we have that they're kind of able to point out and see. Another action step would be to respond to her bids of connection. This is something that Godman also found that the happiest couples don't just talk, they respond. And he calls it turning toward each other's bids for connection. So you have verbal bids, you have physical, physical bids, and you have shared interest bids. So, like, the verbal bid is. She says, hey, can I tell you something weird that happened at work today? And maybe you're watching the television and you can ignore her and keep going or maybe even say, yeah, sure, but don't turn towards her. All of that can be a buff off. But if you turn, turn the television off and turn towards her and focus in, you're responding, you're responding. You're basically saying, yeah, tell me. Like, you matter more than, than what's on the screen. Phys. She kind of comes into your area and she might brush past you and touch your shoulder or something like that. And you can just sort of let that come and go, or you could just kind of reach out and put your hand on her hand or respond in the same way. And that basically says, I felt that and I'm with you. And then finally, shared interest bid. She might send you a reel that she thinks is funny, and you can kind of ignore it again, not do anything, or you could watch it laugh, and then maybe send one back to her that, that she might like as well. So again, it's like saying, I like what you like. I like doing. I like doing this with you. Again, it's. It's kind of responding and kind. And I think it's. It's a very. Ted, you've talked about all this stuff before. It's just a really powerful thing to kind of. When they reach out, to reach back.
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B
Absolutely, absolutely. When they're smiling, are you smiling back? Right. If they're upset about something, are you stopping? Are you listening? Are you off your phone? It's just these little mom. To communicate this. And you mentioned video reels. And the stability of my marriage rises and falls on my response to the reels that she sends me throughout the day. I'm not on social media a lot during the day, but I have to make sure that I respond to those before she gets home from work. And then she does this adorable thing where we watch them all again together. And I will say to this, she's the best curator of reels of all times, because we both speak the language of sarcasm in silliness. And so it is like her handing me a little gift, like a little kid, like, do you like my drawing? Do you like my drawing, dad? What do you think about my drawing? But it's those moments where, again, it's a bid for connection. Will you connect with me? We just say yes. And it's so simple. It's so simple. And it takes seconds to do it.
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A
Yeah. Well, that bid for connection you're talking about, Gottman found that happy couples, they turn towards each other 86, 87% of the time. And unhappy couples don't, like, 33% of the time they're turning towards those bids for connections. So there's a direct line to how often you are looking at each other, accepting that bid, and responding to how happy you're going to be as a couple. And I found, you know, in my house, more often than not, I have to remind myself to do not stop, drop, and roll. There's no fire, but, like, just stop and drop. And what I mean by that is I need to stop what I'm doing during that bid for connection and drop whatever I'm holding because I get distracted. I've got a lot of things going on. So the stop. My wife says, hey, can you come look at this stop what I'm doing, that shows her whatever matters to her actually matters to me too. And then drop so that I can show her that I don't have my focus on anything but you right now. So I have to stop and I have to drop. And it's kind of something that I've developed over time. And it's better for our marriage because she gets all of me instead of part of me. That bid for connection is not just, you know, 60% of Bobby. She gets all of me. And that makes it more genuine.
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B
Couples that really have great relationships, they're just doing the simple things consistently. Another thing Gottman says is that the magic ratio is you have five positive interactions for every one negative. So that really speaks to this next action step, which is to celebrate her wins. When she gets excited, do you celebrate with her? And I love this study, it's from the University of California, found that how we celebrate is more predictive of a strong relationship than how we fight. When couples celebrate each other's good news, it just builds closeness and it's. It builds a connected relationship. You know, Nancy doesn't like for me to go over the top with her wins, but she does like me to stop and to smile and to receive it. And that part is really big for her. And, you know, every wife is different, and you have to read that and you have to adjust that, but no one is married to someone that doesn't appreciate their wins being celebrated. It's so huge. How do for you guys, like, when your wife has. Has a win, how do you celebrate?
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A
Well, it depends. If we're playing a board game, I do not celebrate. I do not celebrate losing to her in a board game. But if it's something else, you know, I try my very best to make a big deal out of it. And in fact, recently, we had an issue where she had painted this for a women's group event she was going to. She had painted really hard. It was beautiful, like, flowers and things. She was so proud of it. And then when it came time for the event, she gotten sick and she couldn't go. And so she missed out on the opportunity to, like, have everyone see her artwork and all that. And she was disappointed. And so one of the women who was at the event sent a little video of this artwork being presented to the speaker. And so my wife brought it over and said, hey, look, they gave my artwork to whoever the woman was who was speaking. And at the moment that she wanted to show it to me, I was kind of busy. I had, like, something going on. I was, like, doing a work thing. But I, like. I said stop and drop. I paused and I went over and I watched the video, and I just told her, man, that is so cool. Look how happy that made her. Look how much they love the painting. You did a beautiful job. And, like, praised her for something that she did really well. And she felt loved. She felt like she was bummed for not being there in person, but she still felt loved because I got to celebrate the win for her. And so that was a big thing for our house. You know, I look for those opportunities. I wish I did a better job at it, to be honest, but I think doing it as often as possible is good.
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B
That's good.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Gosh, I was trying to think of instances where I've done this and not. There's not one that kind of comes to mind. I mean, I'm sure I. I'm sure there have been times when she's shown her excitement, and I've shown. I've shown my excitement. But seeing as how there's no stories that come to mind right away, it makes me feel like, boy, I gotta get better at this. Like, so I. I just appreciate this reminder and discussion so that I, like. Yeah, I just. I feel like I need to get better at this.
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B
Gosh, I do, too. I mean, we. We all do, right? Like, everyone's listening, going, oh, I didn't know how important it was to celebrate that with. With her. That's what I love about these episodes is hopefully people going, oh, I need. I need to do that. And it's so fun when you get a win on this. It's so fun when you celebrate in a small way. You put your phone down, you laugh at what they think. It's funny. Just watch what happens. It's. It's close to magic. You can't believe how proud of yourself you're going to be, guys. So if you're hearing this, just celebrate this with her. Because when you're celebrating with her, what you're, you're saying is, hey, I'm in your corner, and I think you're, I think you're incredible. And honestly, who doesn't want to be married to someone who makes them feel celebrated instead of competed with? I mean, it's just a huge moment, and they're so small and they happen, and it takes seconds.
- [16:59]
C
Yeah, I love that, Ted. Gosh, I need to, I need to keep working on that. So another point would be to laugh together. That I think that is just kind of a powerful thing that can keep marriage stronger is to laugh more. So the University of Kansas found that couples who laugh Together are 10% happier. And just remembering a funny moment boosts connection by 23%. Laughter activates the brain's endorphin system and lowers cortisol, the stress hormone, by as much as 36% in a single session. And here's the kicker. We are 30 times more likely to laugh when we're with other people than when we're alone. So joy multiplies when it's shared. So joy isn't fluff, it's fuel. So we need to laugh at our quirks, the inside jokes just kind of life in general. We need to find the things that laugh and help one another do that more.
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A
Yeah, I like that. I like it. Last action step. It's the worst one. Show love through non sexual touch. This is optional. You don't have to listen to us on this part. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Obviously this is important. You know your wife, you're trying to show love to her every single day. There's so much power in just simply giving a hug or holding her hand kiss on the cheek. Like physical touch is one of the fastest ways that we can remind our spouse that you're on the same team, that you're together, that you love each other, you're for each other, you're committed to each other, all important things. And obviously a lot of research has been done on marriages and physical touch over the years. We found a study from the University of North Carolina. And what I thought was cool about this is it says a 20 second hug, so that's non sexual touch. 20 second hug lowers stress. That's a gift, dear wife, lowers blood pressure, and it even strengthens your immune system just from hugging for 20 seconds. So it literally calms your body down and tells everyone, I'm safe, you're good, you're set. So, like, non sexual touch is a big deal. Your wife thinks it's a bigger deal than you do. Probably. So go hold her hand today. Go on a walk, remind her I'm still here. I love you, I care about you. Dr. John Gottman recommends a six second kiss. Wanna do that? I mean, start with six seconds. You can go up to seven if you want to. And then I just reset your relationship with that non sexual touch. I think that's really a cool thing. Physical touch. It says what words can't say. You know, you, you really, you really should prioritize that as a husband, Bobby.
- [19:41]
B
It's so true. I talked to this couple and, you know, the guy's love language was, you know, physical touch. So his wife said she's not naturally affectionate. So he comes in and she's trying to hold his hand or whatever, and he immediately initiates sex. And she goes, I need to know that every time that I touch you, it's not sending you the message necessarily that I'm ready for sex. So it's one of those things with. It can really mean a lot to our wives when we're just being affectionate for affectionate sake. Whether that's to make her feel safe or reassured or comforted or it's a playful move. You know, Bobby mentioned the, the thing about hugging and how it regulates, you know, Nancy and I, we're not super touchy. Like, we, we laugh that when we hold hands, we kind of hate it. We're like, oh, you know, but it's funny now the kids at our house, we're finding ourselves way more affectionate, more to drive by being affectionate. And once we found out the study about how it regulates each other when you, when you hug, she will come in, in the mornings and she'll go, okay, regulate me. And. But it's become this, this tender thing. It really does regulate your breathing. And we start breathing together during the hug. You know, we talk a lot about breathing on this podcast for some reason, I guess dads, we know, just, just take a breath, buddy. But it is those little moments. It is, you know, a 30 second hug, a six second kiss. And we're talking about, how do you love them every day. It's those little moments that are so, that are so, so important.
- [21:21]
C
I think I'm the Nancy in my marriage because the other day. So my love language is physical touch. And the other day I'm not Ashamed to say. I asked my wife for a hug and she gave it to me and I loved it and she loved it.
- [21:40]
A
I remember when we were doing their first initial interview process, we were doing all the love languages and you asked me, you said, hey, what's your love language? And I was like, I like words of affirmation. I was like, well, I like physical touch with my wife. And you said, that just means you're alive, you're alive. He's like that. That's not really physical touch as a love language. You're just married and you're alive. That's all that means for you and for every.
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C
Anybody listening. I typically do not ask, what's your love language in a job interview.
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A
I don't know if it was in an interview. I think we just had a conversation one day early on when I was first hired. And I remember that question and I remembered your response was, no, that's not your love language. You're just married. It's fine.
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C
Yeah, yeah, right. You're just a man who's married.
- [22:23]
B
Yeah, yeah. You're just a man who's married. We have derailed the conversation, folks. This is not about, this is about our wives and what's the small things that we can do to make them feel loved. Which takes us to our pro move of the week. This week. Make one little move matter. You can choose from one of these five or come up with your own. Number one, diffuse conflict with kindness. Number two is respond to her bids for connection. Number three is celebrate her wins. Number four is laugh together. Or number five, just show her love through non sexual touch. You know, I love these episodes. I love getting to share good news with guys that it's not as complicated as we've been led to believe. It's these small, small moments that make up great marriages. You guys, thank you. It's fun talking this stuff out with you.
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A
Amen.
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B
It's good stuff. Our wives are going to be, they're going to think we're great tonight because we're all going to be better at this tonight, aren't we? Hope so. I, you know what, I love the idea of guys listening to this right now and going, oh, I've never thought about that as much. Going in tonight, making a little move and you know, their wives pass out, but then they stand back up and go, this is great, be like this more. But I do love the idea of every episode that we're doing that's mattered. So thank you guys for this discussion. And most of all, we want to thank you for listening. We know you and your kids will be so glad that you did.
- [23:53]
D
Thanks again for listening to the All Pro Dad Podcast. Behind every episode is our amazing team producer Haley Mwat, audio and video editor Buck Buchanan, and production coordinator Corey Wolf. AllPro dad is the fatherhood program of the nonprofit Family first, along with our motherhood program imom. We exist to help you love your family well. So remember, if you have more questions than answers, then you're probably in the right place. See you next time.
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A
It.