Listen to the full episode of Change the Odds: Two Words That Could Transform Your Marriage. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation.
Here’s a small assignment that could change your marriage: take a sticky note, write two words on it, and put it where you’ll see it every day. The words are attend and attune. I keep them on my own computer screen as a reminder of what my wife, my kids, and honestly everyone I’m in relationship with actually needs from me. If we learn to do these two things, the effect on our marriages, our parenting, and every other relationship is enormous.
We’re all looking to be seen
The psychiatrist Kurt Thompson says we all come into the world looking for someone who is looking for us. We are built to be seen, and when we feel unseen, the nervous system starts firing off fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. To the degree that we feel seen, valued, and understood, we grow and respond well. So the question becomes: how do we help the people we love feel seen? That’s where these two words come in.
Attend: be truly present
To attend to your spouse is to be present, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. Think of the difference between merely being in the room and actually attending a concert, where you’re engaged, not just occupying a seat. John Gottman calls the small moments where we reach for each other “bids for connection,” a glance, a text, a “hey, look at this.” In his research, the couples who thrive respond to those bids roughly eight times out of ten, while struggling couples respond only three or four. Miss enough bids and your spouse quietly stops making them. (One striking stat: couples who text throughout the day, even just silly memes, feel far more connected.)
Gottman frames the goal as turning toward your partner rather than away, and one honest test is simple: who’s the first person you tell good news to? Sue Johnson captures the same idea in her question “Are you there?”, A.R.E.: Accessible, Responsive, and Engaged. Some spouses aren’t accessible; others are accessible but brush you off; others respond but never truly engage. Being all three transforms the emotional climate of a marriage.
Attending also requires rhythms, small daily rituals that create space to connect: a walk, breakfast together, a few minutes in the kitchen, even standing on the deck watching a meteor shower. And here’s the catch: the busier your life and the more kids at home, the more intentional you have to be, or you’ll drift into parallel lives, separate rooms, separate screens, no connection point at all.
Attune: feel with them
If attending is showing up, attuning is tuning in, understanding and empathizing with your spouse’s inner world the way you’d tune a guitar to match a pitch. Julie Menanno, in Secure Love, describes it as feeling with someone and letting them know, “I am with you in this, and I’m not trying to fix you out of it.” Dan Siegel calls the result “feeling felt”, the moment your internal state shifts to resonate with another’s, so your spouse senses they are truly seen.
In practice, attuning is mostly listening, not defending yourself, not explaining away their feelings, not rushing to fix. It’s validating their experience, because what they feel is what they feel. (You don’t get to tell someone a bite isn’t spicy when it’s spicy to them; you don’t get to define anyone else’s inner experience.) Rather than “it’s not a big deal,” try “I can see why you’re upset.”
Support before solutions
Our brains race to solve, but long before people need solutions, they need emotional safety. If you fix your spouse’s problem without emotionally supporting them, you stay disconnected; if you emotionally support them, connection follows whether or not you solve anything. Menanno puts it perfectly: when people feel dismissed, they double down; when they feel seen, they soften. “Calm down” almost never produces calm, but genuine validation often does. It’s a case where the action we instinctively take drives away the very outcome we want.
Gottman even built the word ATTUNE into an acronym worth remembering: Awareness, Turning toward, Tolerance, Understanding, Non-defensiveness, and Empathy. Do those, and you build the one thing every close relationship runs on, trust.
This week, put that sticky note where you’ll see it and pick one person, your spouse first, and simply practice attending and attuning. Notice how hard it is, and notice what it does. In Part 2, we get into the neuroscience of why this works and how to put it into practice. It also pairs naturally with understanding your attachment style, since attunement is exactly how secure connection gets built.
For much more on building the friendship at the heart of a thriving marriage, pick up Kevin’s book Friends, Partners & Lovers. Learn to attend and attune, and you’ll change the odds for your marriage.