How to Combat Relationship Entropy and Enjoy Your Partner More Than EVER

This episode explores the concept of emotional entropy in relationships, emphasizing that love requires consistent effort and attention to thrive. Through relatable analogies and expert insights, we are encouraging you to actively nurture your marriage to prevent stagnation and promote growth.

• Overview of emotional entropy and its relevance to relationships 
• Common misconceptions about marriage leading to complacency 
• Importance of Dr. John Gottman’s insights on emotional health 
• Strategies for turning towards each other’s bids for attention 
• The value of recognizing daily contributions within the partnership 
• Practical tips for investing in a thriving relationship 
• Encouragement to prioritize kindness and active engagement with partners 
• Call to action for listeners to implement changes in their relationships

Chapters

• 0:00 The Cure to Relationship Entropy
• 8:58 Investing in Emotional Connection
• 16:54 Prioritizing Emotional Connection in Relationships
• 24:00 Combatting Relationship Entropy

Transcript

Monica Tanner: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, Monica Tanner, and my co-host, Nate Bagley, who is in charge of our topic today. So he is going to introduce what we're going to talk about, and I am just here to look pretty and give you insight a little bit.

Nate Bagley: 0:18

So I have a question. Okay, have you ever been driving down the road and you see an old car in a field and it's just like dilapidated, rusty, gross?

Monica Tanner: 0:34

Yeah, you know, I live in Idaho, right Like I see a lot, yeah, yeah yeah.

Nate Bagley: 0:39

Or another example is like have you ever seen whether it's like maybe a business building or a house and the owners move out and then over time it just starts to wear down and get really junky and gross and sometimes to the point where it starts to collapse and things like that? You've noticed that?

Monica Tanner: 1:00

Totally, especially in some of the towns that we love to visit.

Nate Bagley: 1:05

Yeah, so this is so. This is a manifestation of this idea called entropy. It's the second law of thermodynamics. I'm not going to quote exactly what the law of thermo.

Monica Tanner: 1:21

I'm not a. I'm not a physicist or anything, but the idea behind the law. I thought you were.

Nate Bagley: 1:24

The idea behind the principle of entropy is that in a closed system, things tend to degrade over time, and so you would think that, like not using a car or not using a house, like not having foot traffic, not having that, those things would actually be preserved, they would remain in the same state that you left them in. But the truth is is that when something stops getting used, when people stop investing energy to maintain something, its natural state is to get worse and degrade over time. And Dr John Gottman, who is one of my favorite relationship experts, has this really interesting quote about relational or emotional entropy. He says like the second law of thermodynamics, which says that in closed energy systems things tend to run down and get less orderly, the same seems to be true of closed relationships like marriages. My guess is that if you do this is a complicated sentence, I'll see if I can read it right he says my guess is that if you, if you do nothing to make things get better in your marriage but do nothing wrong, then the marriage will still tend to get worse over time.

Nate Bagley: 2:34

To maintain a balanced emotional ecology, you need to make an effort. Think about your spouse during the day, think about, uh, how to make a good thing even better and then act, and that's from his book why Marriages Succeed or Fail and how you Can Make Yours Last. So I want to talk about this idea of entropy. I think there is a little bit of a myth that people buy into that we all bought into at some point where you find your person and if you make the right choice, your relationship is going to be great. And then the second half of that myth is that if things stop being great, it's probably because you chose the wrong person.

Nate Bagley: 3:14

You made a mistake and that is untrue. The reality is that there are all sorts of things in life that, if you're not consistently investing in your relationship, will erode at it and eat at it and degrade it and wear it down. And, like Dr Gottman says, if you're not, even if you do nothing wrong, you make no mistakes in your marriage. But you're not proactively working to make it better, it's still going to get worse over time. So I don't know, what do you think about that idea? What do you think about that principle?

Monica Tanner: 3:48

Yeah, Well, I think it's really interesting, and you can see examples of that all around. Like, I mean, I just think about, like if I, you know, totally clean my living room and like make it perfect, and then we don't even enter the room, you'd think that it would just stay the way that it is. But you go in later and it's like dusty and there you know. So, like, if you ignore something and like maybe you're not using it, wearing it down or even making mistakes with it, it's still going to disintegrate over time. And that's so true with our relationships. I mean, I do think there's that myth that, you know, once we get married, it's like like I got him, you know, it's like you were my person.

Monica Tanner: 4:35

Yeah, you work so hard to impress somebody, like show up as your best self when you're dating and you're like trying to like really like snag the person of your dreams, and then you like make the vows and then people just get really lazy.

Nate Bagley: 4:49

it's interesting well, I think it plays into the the name of your podcast a little bit too. This is just occurring to me. Think of a fairy tale story. You know, uh, you know, a couple might fall in love. They go through some adversity, you know the stereotypical disney princess story, and then they and then or they meet, they go through adversity and they fall in love, and then they get married. And then what's the next step? They lived happily ever after. Well, like what. We never really get to see what that looks like or what that requires. We just kind of assume it's going to be a default. If I find the right person and that happily ever after is a journey, not a destination.

Monica Tanner: 5:30

Yeah.

Nate Bagley: 5:32

Yes For all of you Brandon Sanderson fans out there.

Monica Tanner: 5:36

Journey before destination my husband would love that. I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about, but Well, it's a, you know, you know I don't know what you're talking about but, you know, you know.

Monica Tanner: 5:50

So, yeah, I think that's awesome because I do think, especially like growing up as a little girl who loved fairy tales and loved Disney movies, like you do get this idea that I'm going to marry my Prince Charming, he's just going to take care of everything and I just get to like be beautiful and show up and everything's going to be awesome, and so I think that is a huge disservice a that we do with those fairy tales. So there's just not enough stories about dang. I'm gonna have to look this up and put it in the show notes. But there's this book it's like called Fanny's dream. Maybe my mother in law readlaw read it to me once and she has it at her house and I will go find it and it is awesome. We'll do like an epilogue or something with it.

Monica Tanner: 6:31

But it's all about the hard work that marriage requires, right? So it's like all everything that happens after the happily ever after, and it's so good Cause it's like you know, they're working side by side and they have to remember to like engage with each other too, because you can just get really. You know, life is about work and so you can be working really hard, but you might be working really hard at the wrong things, or you might be working really hard at the right things, but forget to work as a team together, and I think that's those are some of the huge skill sets of marriage is learning how to work hard together as a team to get the right things accomplished.

Nate Bagley: 7:13

Yes, Yep, I agree, I think, um, I think, if I were to to try to summarize in one sentence what the cure to entropy, or the the oppositional force is that you need to have in your relationship If you do want it to get better over time, I'm going to steal another Gottman quote, since this is his principle. He says it's the small things done often that make the difference. And so this idea of of being consistent, this idea of having my friend and I call it streaks like you have a streak, not like streaks in your underwear, streaks like unbroken, like consistency, like every single day you do this one thing and I really think Snapchat streak for those who are younger.

Monica Tanner: 7:59

listening to this what? Was that it's like a Snapchat streak for those younger people, right, right.

Nate Bagley: 8:07

It's exactly like that, and so I'm curious. I want to ask you, what are some of the things that the small things that you do often, whether it's like daily or weekly that are an investment in your marriage, to kind of push back on the entropy and they might be second nature to you, kind of like brushing your teeth? I think a lot of people would feel weird walking out the door not having brushed their teeth. You know, it's just so ingrained in who you are, that you're you just brush your teeth every day that it feels weird when you don't do it. I think there's something really cool about developing habits in your relationship that that you you feel a little funky when you don't do them. There's other types of habits that require a little bit of willpower and planning and thoughtfulness, and I'm curious if you have either of those in your relationship and, if so, what they are.

Monica Tanner: 8:58

Yeah, well, I'll bring up another like really awesome kind of Gottman principle which is like bids for attention. So I think really importantly in my husband and I's marriage, because I was actually just thinking about this this afternoon. It was really interesting because I was like why do I get so giddy when I see my husband on my phone Like either he texts or he's sending a Marco, either he can be sending a Marco when you see your husband on your phone or on his phone, on my phone, okay, so not when you see your husband texting, but when you see your husband on your phone or on his phone, on my, phone Like okay, so not when you see your husband texting, but when you see a message from your husband on your phone.

Monica Tanner: 9:31

Yeah.

Nate Bagley: 9:32

Got it. I don't love to see my husband For a second there, I was like you get giddy when you see your husband on his phone, Like no, no.

Monica Tanner: 9:39

Okay, sorry. So when my separated and I'll see something like flash from him on my phone, I still get like super giddy, like I'm so excited to hear what he has to say. So it could be like a Marco he's sending to his family or like a group of buddies or something like that. Or it could be a text he's sending to me or in a group. I get so giddy, like I'm so like, what is he gonna say? Like I just get so excited, like oh my gosh, like, and so I was like trying to figure out like why is that?

Monica Tanner: 10:10

Like we've been married for almost 23 years, like that's a really long time, and like I could just be like I know, I know what he's going to say, like I'm sure, like whatever, but like I, just when I see him talking, it's like everything inside of me wants to know what he is saying and I just get really excited. And I think it's because both of us have gotten really good over the years at turning towards each other. So when he makes a bid or I make a bid, both of us are very like cued into that. So even like late in the middle of the night last night like he was up at three for some reason, I don't know why, even though that makes me crazy that he's awake at three o'clock, like he can roll over and any type of soft touch to me.

Nate Bagley: 10:57

And I was also up at three o'clock.

Monica Tanner: 11:01

We need to teach you guys how to sleep Like. I am a really good sleeper If I can like give those skills.

Nate Bagley: 11:07

I'm the same way. I'm a sleeper too. I just have children who decided to take shifts last night. Yeah, yeah so anyways, we, our children, continue your story. Yeah.

Monica Tanner: 11:15

Yeah, our children are old, they all sleep through the night. There's no reason for him to be awake. But if he does wake up in the middle of the night and he like touches me in any way, like makes any type of soft contact in the middle of the night, I instinctively turn towards him and I feel like that's awake too. Like we just really try. When either of us is either making a vocal bid or a physical bid for any type of affection, we just turn towards each other immediately and I love that.

Monica Tanner: 11:50

It makes me just like I don't know crave him, like crave, like what's inside his mind, like what he's doing, want to be around him. So I'm thinking a lot about that lately, because my son is dating seriously and like getting moving towards the point, and I'm like what is it? What's the magic? Like, what do you want to make sure that you have? And for me it's really like are you going to crave this person for the rest of your life? Are you going to be committed to the actions of what we're talking about here and I think we'll list some things but the actions that are going to make you crave this person for the rest of your life?

Nate Bagley: 12:32

Yeah, yeah. There's two thoughts popped into my mind and I can. If somebody is in a bad space in their marriage, I could see them hearing you say that and be like, well, of course I don't crave my partner. Them hearing you say that and be like, well, of course I don't crave my partner. They're like grumpy or they're not helpful or they're checked out or you know, they're not committed.

Nate Bagley: 12:53

And something I learned a long time ago that has held true so far I don't know if it's capital T truth, but it feels pretty true is I don't want to say 100%, this is 100%, but the idea behind it is like I think sometimes we think the feelings precede the action. Like when I feel nice about you, then I will treat you better. When I feel positively towards you, then I will serve you and be kind to you. When you do something to earn it, like when you do something to warrant this treatment, then I'll feel good about you and the actions will follow. And what I've noticed in my life is that when I change my actions first, the emotions often follow, instead of waiting for the emotion to inspire the action. So I don't think that it's a hundred percent true that, like I mean there's? I think there's.

Nate Bagley: 13:57

When taken to an extreme, this could be like a, a, a recipe for abuse, but I think that it warrants asking yourself. The question are can you lead with the action by being the type of partner that you want to be, regardless of whether or not your partner deserves it, or regardless of how you feel about your partner, and if you can show up that way for them? What I found in my life is that oftentimes the positive feelings follow when I am intentionally kind and patient, when I intentionally serve my partner, when I plan things for her, when I intentionally serve my partner, when I plan things for her, when I intentionally do things that are romantic, the feelings of romance and desire and craving my partner often follow. But if I wait for her to like do something to deserve it first, sometimes I think that it's an unfair thing to do and we set them up to fail, and so I feel like your craving of your husband probably has a lot to do with the way that you treat and invest in him. Is that fair.

Monica Tanner: 14:57

Yeah, I definitely think that's fair and I I think that's like. I think you could put that into an experiment form like you do, like the epic wives experiment. I feel like there was a lot of that. It was a lot of just like Do the thing, whether you, you think that your partner deserves it or not, and just see what happens. And there's a lot of like good that comes from that. And then I also think that it's If you, if you show up as the partner that you would want to be partnered with, there's something magical that happens there too.

Nate Bagley: 15:33

Yeah, I had. This is the second perfect segue into the second thing that I thought of while you were talking is one of my favorite couples. Their names are David and Gretchen. My wife and I interviewed them a lot almost a decade ago and we've been friends ever since and they're an incredible couple and one of the things that they said has always always stuck with me and my wife and I talk about it regularly, and they said in their relationship they made this commitment to always treat their partner like they're the actual most important person in the world, and I remember I think it was Gretchen said like I'm surprised by how many, how many people are more kind to, like the, the, the checkout person at the grocery store or the teller at the bank or the customer support person on the phone, like they have more kindness and and generosity towards them than they do towards their own partner. And so they they make it a point, a priority, to treat each other with kindness and respect and and you can see it in their relationship and in their friendship and it's a really beautiful thing and I think there's something to really committing to your partner and saying like you are the most important person to me and my actions and my words are going to reflect that. And that means when you're talking to me, if I'm on my phone, I'm going to put it down because you're the most important thing to me. If I'm watching a show, I'm going to hit pause or I'm going to turn it off. When you walk in the door, you know when, when you invite me to do something with you, I'm or or to engage with you like you were talking. You're the bids for connection. Like engage with you Like we're talking. You're the bids for connection. Like. I want to. I want to respond in a positive way. I want to. I want to understand.

Nate Bagley: 17:09

You know a recent podcast we did. We talked about being a student of your partner. You know you invest in understanding, like what are their likes and dislikes, what upsets them, what's stressing them out in their life right now. Like you're inquisitive, you're curious, you you thank them for the ways that they contribute to make your life better, like. All of those things reflect this idea that you are the most important person to me out of anybody else on this planet. And I think I think that complacency of of just being like well, this person chose me and they're always going to choose me and that's just going to be how things always are, whether it's I don't think it's always verbalized that way, but I think subconsciously we can slip into that mindset and it reflects on our behaviors and that can be kind of what opens up the door to that entropy to creep into our relationship and we just say, well, I'm not doing anything wrong, so I don't see why our marriage should be getting worse. But but I think that's the gateway to to to like marital degradation.

Monica Tanner: 18:06

Yeah, you know, as you're talking, I was thinking about this, like if you really thought about, like who would be somebody that you would literally drop everything to talk to, or like you know, if they called you like would no matter what it was you were doing, you would stop and like answer that call. If you, if you make your spouse that person, like that would be like really because, like I think my husband is at work and you know, I think early in our marriage, like you know, we'd be having family time or something, and you know somebody would call like a customer or something like that, and he would feel so like like he needed to stop what he was doing, yeah, and answer that phone call because they're paying the bills or whatever. And so I think, if you just switch that and make your spouse the one who you would literally would drop everything and you can have conversations about this, like doing this respectfully, like if your spouse is calling you every five minutes at work, probably we need to have a conversation about it.

Nate Bagley: 19:08

There's realistic boundaries that you can set, but the principle, the idea behind it, is like yeah, am I number one in your life?

Monica Tanner: 19:16

Yeah.

Nate Bagley: 19:16

And are you number one in mine Treat?

Monica Tanner: 19:18

your spouse like that. So the other thing I was thinking about is I have this couple that I'm working with and they're so awesome and they're gaining the skills really quick with and they're so awesome and they're gaining the skills really quick. But one thing I've noticed is, um, the the husband is not really good at like at building up his wife, and so she'll get really emotional Like you can tell that she's longing for something Like she wants to be important to him and she wants to be like you know, feel like he cares a lot about her, but it's just really hard with the way he treats her. And so we're working a lot. The skills we're working on are cherishing skills, on on him building her and making her like, helping her realize the best version of herself. So I'm not saying like he's going to create her or something like that, but a lot of times when you see couples, you can tell, like, when the wife is super confident about you know spending money or you know showing up in a certain way or something like that, you can usually guess or or um, what's the word uhrapolate that the husband treats her like that, like she's worthy of this or that, and that confidence comes from somebody really building you up, and it goes the other way too, of course, with wives.

Monica Tanner: 20:41

When you see a husband that's super confident at work and something like, you can extrapolate from that that the wife probably treats him like he's super competent and awesome and and vice the other way around too. When you see a man who's kind of like a shell of a man and you know he's like yes, yes, ma'am, you know whatever like, you can pretty much guess that the wife is probably breaking him down and, like you know, insulting him and nagging him and you know all of those things. So I think it is really telling we do have a huge impact on each other as spouses and who we are have the ability to become.

Nate Bagley: 21:23

Yeah, yeah, I think you nailed it. So the power is yours. So just understand that the universe is working against you.

Monica Tanner: 21:34

That's so true actually.

Nate Bagley: 21:36

And that's the reality of life. Is that like?

Monica Tanner: 21:39

But not like in a spiritual way, like everything is happening for you, like that is true, like I want. I want you to know that everything is happening for you. But yeah, the forces of the universe are, they're breaking things down, like you've got to actively build up.

Nate Bagley: 21:55

The natural state of any relationship is that it will degrade over time if all you do is not screw it up. So if you want your relationship to be awesome, you need to be doing consistent, regular things to invest in your relationship and kind of give it some positive momentum. And hopefully in today's episode you got a couple of ideas of ways that you can invest in your relationship, things you can do, mindsets that you can adopt that can help you be consistently combating that force of entropy. And maybe this is a great dialogue to have with your partner. Like hey, I learned about this thing called relational entropy or emotional entropy and I realized like I might've been a little complacent what are some things that I could do for you that would consistently, that would really be meaningful, that would make you feel loved and that would help us combat that kind of that, that erosion of our relationship over time.

Monica Tanner: 22:53

Yeah.

Nate Bagley: 22:54

Maybe they'll have an answer, maybe they'll need to think about it, but I think we can summarize this episode with some really good bullet points.

Monica Tanner: 23:00

I think I'm ready, but you can add.

Nate Bagley: 23:02

Give us a few bullets.

Monica Tanner: 23:04

Yeah, so number one turn towards each other's bids for attention. Like, make that your number one. If your partner is turning is making a bid in any way, vocally or physically, turn towards those bids. So that's number one turn towards each other. And that's very Gottman.

Nate Bagley: 23:23

Yeah.

Monica Tanner: 23:24

Number two. Let's see, number two is like make an effort right.

Nate Bagley: 23:30

I'm loving your bullets. These are great.

Monica Tanner: 23:33

I think number two broke down, but number three is really good. It's to build each other up.

Nate Bagley: 23:37

Yeah.

Monica Tanner: 23:38

So I think no. Number two, I got it. Number two is make each other the most important person in your life. So, number one, turn towards each other. Number two make your partner the most important person in your life. So, number one, turn towards each other. Number two make your partner the most important person in your life. Treat them like they are the most important person in your life. And number three build them up in any way you possibly can.

Nate Bagley: 23:59

Love it. Okay, make a commitment, do something between now and the next episode, and then come back and tell us what went.

Monica Tanner: 24:06

Let us know what worked best, because we don't want your relationship to break down. Don't just idly sit by and watch a lot of TV and, you know, complain that you're not getting what you want in your relationship. Like you can take these episodes together, ask for what you want, like, but also don't let your relationship break down for lack of care.

Nate Bagley: 24:29

Love it.

Monica Tanner: 24:30

Awesome. Well, I think we nailed this one, so I think we can call this one a day.

Nate Bagley: 24:37

So I'm going to let you sign off.

Monica Tanner: 24:38

We're going to call this relationship entropy, and so here's how to combat relationship entropy. It's to one, turn towards each other. Two, make each other the most important thing in each other's lives. And three, build each other up any chance you have. So we will be here next week with another awesome episode, and until then, happy marriaging.