Valentine’s Day Gift Guide From your Couples Therapist

What are you doing for Valentine’s Day? I love asking all my couples this question as the day approaches. I love hearing creative things people come up with, but it makes me sad when I hear them say they aren’t doing anything, “because it’s just another day.” 

Yes, it is just another day, but it’s also an extra opportunity to connect with your partner! Showing love to your spouse doesn’t have to cost a ton of money, and it doesn't have to be cheesy. 

I want to help you pick out the perfect gift for your sweetheart. But first, let’s do a little prep work. If you haven’t done so already, take the 5 Love Languages Quiz here, and ask your partner to take it as well.   

If you don’t know about the 5 love languages, I’ll give you the quick, Cliff’s Notes version: We all have ways that we perceive that we are being loved, and ways we show others that we love them. Those two things are not always the same. When we figure out how we like to be loved and how our partner likes to be loved, we can do things to truly make them feel loved in ways they can feel and hear. 

Once you’ve taken the quiz and you understand what your partner’s love language is, you can start speaking it.  According to Gary Chapman in his book, The 5 Love Languages, there are 5 ways we show love: 

1. Acts of Service: If this is your love language, you perceive that you are being loved when your partner goes out of their way for you with an act. Some examples are: making you a cup of coffee in the morning, ironing your clothes, or making you a meal. 

2. Gifts: if this is your love language, you perceive that you are being loved when your partner provides a token that reminds you they are thinking of you. Some examples are: they pick up your favorite candy when they checkout at the grocery store, they randomly purchase an item from your Amazon shopping cart, or bring you a magnet for your collection when they go out of town for a business trip. 

3. Quality Time: if this is your love language, you perceive you are being loved when your partner makes uninterrupted time to spend with you. Some examples are: they put the kids to bed or help with those duties to create an evening for the two of you to watch a show you love together, or they plan a weekend getaway or staycation for just the two of you. 

4. Words of Affirmation: if this is your love language you perceive that you are being loved when your partner tells you the words you love to hear. Some examples are: they tell you how amazing you look in your new outfit, or make it a point to tell your friends what an amazing job you did at your work presentation, or they say thank you for all you do around the house regularly. 

5. Physical Touch: if this is your love language, you perceive love from your partner when  they are physically affectionate with you. This doesn't just include sex! Things like hand holding, hair stroking, and cuddles on the couch are important to you if this is your love language. 

In the above examples I was providing information for you - the reader. But in order to select the perfect gift you’re going to want to know what your partner’s love language is. Speaking their love language is about providing what they need in order for them to feel loved. 

So, If your partner’s love language is Acts of Service, think about providing a service to him or her that they’d appreciate. Book a car detailer to come out on Valentine’s Day to have their car completely cleaned and taken care of, or do it yourself. Schedule a housekeeper or professional organizer to come out and get your home spic and span. 

You could also do a dinner at home where you prepare a special meal while your partner relaxes on the couch - if this is your gift of choice be sure to clean up the kitchen and make it look as if this never happened once you’re finished. 

If your partner’s love language is Gifts, this might seem like an easy one. But put some thought into it - have they mentioned having their eye on a specific purse or clothing item? Can you check into their Amazon account and purchase items from their wishlist or that have been left in their online shopping cart? Bring home their favorite flowers and candy, or frame their favorite photo and wrap it up for them. 

If your partner’s love language is Quality Time, set up a babysitter for an evening and order in. Instead of turning on the TV, play their favorite music in the background and try some conversation cards like these . Or download the Gottman Card Deck app and take turns asking and answering questions together. 

You can also sign up for my upcoming workshop, The 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work, so that you ensure you’ll be spending 6 weeks of quality time with your partner learning how to have a stronger connection. 

If your partner’s love language is Words of Affirmation, create a list of things that you love about your partner and deliver a note including one item each day leading up to Valentine’s Day. You can use post-its on the bathroom mirror, or create a giant heart out of them and present them all together on V-Day. 

Another option is to have a love song made for your partner that is exclusively about your relationship through songfinch.com or a similar site. You can also frame your wedding vows if you created personal ones, or take this opportunity to create new vows and frame them or write them as a poem. 

And finally, if your partner’s love language is Physical Touch, check out this tutorial on how to give a great upper body massage. Pick up some massage oils, and set the mood to provide a great stress relief for your partner. 

Another idea is to book a dance class for the two of you to learn a fun new dance like salsa, or bachata where you can be close to one another while trying something new. 

I hope these ideas are helpful! I do not receive any commission on any of the links provided, I just want to help all my couples have a wonderful Valentines Day! 

Reply to this email and let me know if you decide to gift anything from the list, I’d love to hear from you! 

Happy Valentine’s Day!

How to stop fighting about Money

Money is one of the top 5 issues that causes conflict in marriage. Many couples fight about the budget - who is staying on track and who isn’t, and they often label one partner as the spender and the other as the saver.

Although these patterns are very common, they aren’t truly helpful in getting to resolution. What really matters is what money means to each partner. 

When couples come to us with conflicts about money we always start by taking a few steps back and help the couple understand one another’s money story. 

It isn’t necessary to have the same values about money as long as you understand one another but most couples don’t actually take the time to do that. Labeling your partner as the spender or the saver is also not helpful and often falls into the category of criticism which we all know is not helpful in working to manage a conflict. 

The first step in working to manage the money conflicts is to understand yourself. What is your money story? How you feel about money and the unconscious automatic thoughts you have about money impact the way you spend, save, and view your partner’s spending and saving. 

In the Gottman’s book, Eight Dates, they have some great questions about money that can help you understand yourself and your partner. The questions are designed to help you look more closely at how you view things like generosity, power and wealth. I definitely recommend you pick up a copy of the book and start doing the exercises with your partner. 

In the meantime, here are some things to think about: 

1. What was your parent’s view on money? Did there seem never to be enough, or was there always more than enough? 

2. Did your parents feel comfortable spending money? What were the messages they passed on when it comes to spending? 

3. Did your family spend money on things like vacations and entertainment? 

4. Was investing important to your parents? Did they donate money to charity? 

5. What did birthdays look like in your family? Did family members buy expensive gifts or throw big parties? 

6. What memories do you have about money - both painful and happy? 

7. What does it mean to have enough money? 

Once you understand your own thoughts and feelings about money and where they come from you can have a conversation about it with your partner. Share where your views on money come from and the memories you have when it comes to your family and money. 

Take the time to ask your partner about their money story. It is important to listen to understand, not to try and persuade your partner to see things your way. Having different money stories is normal, and finding mutual respect for one another is of the greatest importance. 

After you take a step back and find understanding for one another you can start to create shared goals. Do you want to retire early? Is it important to have savings for a home or for your kid’s college? 

Sit down and list all of your financial goals and ask your partner to do the same. Once you’ve finished your lists, share them with one another, and compromise on the priority of each goal. 

After you establish shared goals you can work backwards and figure out how to make those goals a reality. If you need to budget to get there, this is the time to talk about spending and how it does or doesn’t align with your shared financial goals. 

Without buy-in from each partner when it comes to financial goals and the mutual understanding about one another’s money story it is easy to just fight about the dollars and cents! 

If you need help having these conversations or understanding your own money story we are here to help! Click here to book your free 15-minute phone consultation. 

Is it Ever Too Early to Start Couples Therapy?

I think you probably know by now if you’ve been reading my newsletters that the short answer to this question is no. 

On occasion I will get a call from a couple who is engaged or newly married and they will say something like, “we don’t have a lot of issues, but we want to get started on the right foot, do you think it’s a good idea for us to come to therapy?” 

To which I will respond with a very enthusiastic - of course!! And then I do a little song and dance and praise them for taking the time to invest in their relationship before things get overwhelming. 

I honestly wish that couples would invest their money in therapy rather than a lavish wedding, or that it was more normal for family and friends to gift couples therapy to newlyweds. 

*Sigh* Maybe one day. 

There are some major benefits to investing in couples therapy early on in your relationship. 

I know that therapy can be expensive. But think about it like going to the dentist - if you brush and floss regularly you’re less likely to get cavities. If you get your teeth cleaned every six months as recommended then that gives the dentist an opportunity to detect a cavity early and take care of it before you are in need of a root canal or something more serious. 

Starting couples therapy before things get too out of control is like getting a filling. The amount of time and money you’ll be spending in therapy is going to be much less than if you’ve been in the same negative patterns and routines for years. 

Finding a therapist who practices Gottman Therapy is also really great at the beginning of your marriage because the protocol for treatment includes the Relationship Checkup, which is an extensive background questionnaire designed to measure various aspects of your relationship. 

In most Gottman Therapy practices like Rancho Counseling, you come in first as a couple, complete your Relationship Checkup and then each partner has an individual session with the therapist. 

After that you have a second couples session where the therapist will sit down and show you all of the components it takes to have a really strong, healthy relationship. 

The therapist will discuss your strengths as a couple, and the areas that you have as opportunities for improvement which come from the conversations the therapist is having with you as well as the Relationship Checkup. 

Once those areas are identified you go to work and learn ways to improve the areas that are going to translate to a healthy, happy connection. 

Many couples tell us that even completing the assessment is super helpful because it gets them thinking about their relationship in ways they haven't in the past. Couples also report an increase in their satisfaction levels after just 3 sessions, which is before the real work even begins. My theory about this is that dedicating the time and space to focus on the relationship gets couples thinking differently. They feel excited about the process, and happy that their partner has agreed to focus their time and energy on making improvements. 

Most people don’t actually know what it takes to have a strong, healthy marriage. They have some ideas - good communication, spending time together, etc., but the Gottman method of therapy is backed by years and years of actual research and gets into the nitty gritty of helping couples understand their communication patterns and learn what truly works. 

Much of what people know is by gleaning from what was modeled to them by parents or family members and many times people will tell me they learned what NOT to do because their parents divorced or don’t seem very happy. 

Investing your time in the beginning of your marriage will give you some amazing tools to keep in your toolbox for years and years to come. 

If you are on the fence about it, give us a call and schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation and we will be happy to answer any questions you might have about the process.  

What leads to an Affair?

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about how people give themselves permission to have affairs. I know they don’t do it outright - it’s not the first thing their minds jump to. But when I’m sitting with a couple, the betrayed partner always wants to know, how did this happen? 

What I've learned is that there is a cascade of things that happen in the primary relationship before an affair happens, and I want to share a few of those things with you.  

This can help you either look at your own relationship and work on things so you don’t get to that point, or if you’re in the trenches of affair recovery, it will help you understand how you and your partner got there. 

Just as a caveat, I’m in no way blaming the betrayed partner here for their partner’s choice to step outside the relationship. That was their poor choice, and sometimes that choice has nothing to do with them being in an unhappy marriage. (I think that’s important to note before we dive in.)

Before there is even a thought of an affair, many times an erosion begins to happen in the relationship. This erosion chips away at all of the factors that help couples build trust, opening them up for such a vulnerability. 

The erosion begins with feelings of loneliness. Couples stop turning towards one another and reciprocating one another’s bids for connection. Some examples are: when you feel like every time you walk through the door and say hello, your partner is too busy for a hug or a kiss. Or when you invite your partner to sit next to you on the couch, and they miss your subtle gesture and move into another room or on the opposite end of the living room. 

You may be the one missing the bids for connection - your partner begins to talk about their day, but you’re busy scrolling on your phone or checking the scores of last night’s game and don’t even hear what they have to say. 

Those are just a few examples. You or your partner may be reaching out to one another in a bunch of different ways, and not having your bids for connection reciprocated takes a toll. 

When your partner doesn’t reciprocate your bids for connection you make meaning of that, and the meaning that people tend to make is, “I’m not important,” or “what I have to say isn’t important.” When you internalize those types of thoughts, you can start to feel lonely and even stop making those bids for connection. 

The distance between partners grows when no one is reaching out to connect. 

After the connection stops couples can start to live parallel lives. They pass one another, make plans with friends or coworkers, or focus only on their kids. They have logistical communication - where are you going? What time will you be back? What’s for dinner? And stop having the connective type of communication that is so important to keeping marriage strong, “How are you feeling this week? What have you been thinking about?” 

At this point couples can find it difficult to reconnect - sometimes it’s easier to keep focusing on the kids or work  because you don’t know where to begin, or feel timid in making that connection out of fear of rejection. 

At this phase it can start to feel like your partner isn’t there for you. So seeking comfort outside of the relationship through friendships is common, but also dangerous. Spending time out after work, having drinks with colleagues, or staying late at the office begins to feel better than coming home to an empty marriage. 

During this stage, conflict can be high or avoided. When it’s avoided, partners begin to suppress their feelings, and then they tend to have big blow-ups over things that might be insignificant on the surface, but are more indicative of the feelings underneath - “I’m lonely, and I want to connect with you!” But saying those things might just feel too vulnerable. 

When conflict is avoided, self disclosure is also something that is commonly avoided. You no longer want to tell your partner all about your terrible boss, or run through all of the items on your to-do list for the next day because you internalize that they don’t care, or it’s not important. You may even begin to keep secrets from your partner. 

Keeping secrets can begin to happen quite innocently, because it is often done as an attempt to keep from burdening your partner. You might think, “she’s so busy with the kids, she doesn’t want to hear about all my work stress,” or “he’s so stressed with his own work, I don’t need to bore him with my work stresses.” 

You or your partner may then turn outside the relationship and begin confiding in a coworker, or someone who is part of your workout crew at the gym. Things typically start pretty innocently. But the moment you begin minimizing your partner’s positive traits and maximizing their negative ones, it can become a slippery slope. 

Actively looking towards others in an attempt to feel less lonely, more heard, and understood, can lead in all the wrong directions, and an innocent outing with coworkers, can lead to more and more one-on-one time with a member of the opposite sex that you feel connected to.  

I could go on about how that outside relationship can continue to develop, but I’ll stop here. This is where I hope you’ll stop and begin to recognize that looking outside the relationship is not the answer, even when it seems innocent, but it’s a wake up call that you need to do the difficult work to reconnect with your partner.  

Bids for Connection: How to make and reciprocate them

How well do you notice when your partner is reaching out to connect with you? 

That process of reaching out to connect is called a bid for connection. 

As human beings we are wired for connection, and in our romantic relationships we want to connect with our partner. I know you’re probably thinking, “duh, Alicia, of course!” 

Even though this concept is incredibly simple, it’s amazing how many couples miss the importance of this, and end up feeling lonely in their relationships. 

As simple as bids for connection are to make, they are just as simple to miss because they happen quickly. (Kind of like when you go to the grocery store and the automatic doors open, and you have a few seconds to get in, or the doors close.)

An example of a bid for connection could be: you and your partner are sitting on the couch, and your partner looks out the window, and says, “wow, there are a lot of birds out there.” 

This is not a relationship altering revelation, it’s just a simple observation but one that your partner sees as a way to connect. 

At that moment you can turn towards your partner by saying something like, “oh, yeah.”  Or you can turn away from your partner which would be something like continuing to scroll on your phone, or keep your gaze focused on the game you’re watching on TV. 

(You don’t even have to physically turn towards your partner, that’s just the language that we use to describe reciprocating bids for connection.)

According to John Gottman, in order to maintain a healthy relationship there needs to be a 5 to 1 ratio when it comes to reciprocating bids for connection; so for every time you turn away from your partner and don’t reciprocate a bid for connection, there needs to be five times that you do. 

Reciprocating your partner’s bids for connection is extremely important because when a person feels like their partner isn’t reciprocating their bids they tend to make meaning of this, and they begin to tell themselves things like, “I guess what I have to say isn’t interesting to my partner,” or, “I am not interesting to my partner.”

After continued missed bids for connection, the person who feels like they aren’t important or interesting stops making bids altogether, and one or both partners begin to feel lonely. 

Loneliness in a marriage is a difficult feeling, and since I work with so many couples recovering from infidelity, it makes me worry because that loneliness can be a slippery slope that allows a person to give themself permission to begin opening up to someone else. 

So, look up.

Acknowledge your partner when they are reaching out to connect to you.

Even if it’s just to point out the flock of birds outside the window. Those little connections are important even if the subject matter really isn’t. 

Why Bids for Connection Are Often Missed (Even in Loving Relationships)

One of the things I want to normalize here is that missed bids don’t usually happen because people don’t care. They happen because life is loud.

We’re tired.
We’re overstimulated.
We’re juggling work, kids, finances, notifications, stress, and mental to-do lists that never seem to end.

Most couples I work with don’t intentionally ignore each other. They’re just moving fast — and bids for connection are quiet. They don’t announce themselves. They rarely sound like, “Hey, I need emotional closeness right now.” Instead, they sound like observations, jokes, complaints, questions, or even sighs.

“Did you hear about what happened at work today?”
“Look at this reel.”
“I don’t know why I’m so tired lately.”

All of these are invitations. And when they go unanswered, the nervous system notices — even if the mind doesn’t.

What Happens Inside the Nervous System When Bids Go Unanswered

When bids for connection are consistently missed, partners don’t usually think, “Ah yes, this is about bids.”

They think:

• I feel invisible.

• I feel like I’m bothering you.

• I feel alone even though I’m not technically alone.

Over time, this creates distance that feels confusing. Couples will often say things like, “Nothing big happened — we just drifted,” or, “We stopped feeling close and we don’t know why.”

This is often the why.

Small moments of connection are how safety is built and maintained in a relationship. When those moments disappear, the relationship can start to feel emotionally unsafe, even if there’s no active conflict.

Turning Toward Doesn’t Require Enthusiasm — Just Presence

I want to be clear about something important: reciprocating bids for connection does not mean you have to be endlessly enthusiastic or deeply engaged in every moment.

Turning toward can be subtle.
It can be quiet.
It can take two seconds.

A nod.
A glance.
A simple “yeah, I see that.”

What matters is not the quality of the response — it’s the acknowledgment.

So many partners hold themselves to an unrealistic standard and think, “If I can’t fully show up, I shouldn’t respond at all.” But silence is still a response, and often not the one we intend to send.

A Gentle Practice to Try This Week

Instead of trying to “fix” your relationship or overhaul how you communicate, start small.

For the next few days, just notice:

• How often does your partner reach out in small ways?

• How often are you distracted when it happens?

• How often do you offer even a brief acknowledgment?

This isn’t about perfection. It’s about awareness.

Because relationships aren’t built in grand moments. They’re built in the ordinary, forgettable, easy-to-miss ones — like a comment about birds outside the window.

And those moments matter more than we think.

When Small Moments Have Already Been Missed

If you’re reading this and realizing that bids for connection have been missed for a long time — or that one of you has stopped reaching out altogether — it doesn’t mean your relationship is broken. It means there’s been too much disconnection for too long without support.

This is often when couples tell me, “We don’t fight all the time, we just don’t feel close anymore,” or “It feels like we’re roommates.” And for others, that loneliness has already created deeper ruptures that feel harder to name or repair on your own.

This is exactly the kind of work I support couples with in my 2-day relationship intensives and in 100-minute sessions held twice per month.

These longer formats allow us to slow things down, step out of daily distractions, and gently reconnect to the moments where connection was missed — without blame, without overwhelm, and without trying to fix everything at once.

If you’re not quite ready for an intensive, the 100-minute sessions offer space to rebuild awareness, responsiveness, and emotional safety over time. And if you are ready to do deeper work more quickly, an intensive can help reset the patterns that keep you feeling distant and alone.

If this post resonates, I invite you to schedule a consultation. We can talk through what’s been happening in your relationship and decide together what level of support makes the most sense for where you are right now.

You don’t have to keep missing each other in the small moments.
Support can help you find your way back.

About the author

Alicia Taverner, LMFT, is the owner of Rancho Counseling and has been helping couples and individuals heal relationship patterns since 2008. She specializes in intensive, brain-based therapy—including Brainspotting and Ketamine-Assisted Therapy—for infidelity recovery, trauma, anxiety, and relationship crossroads. Alicia helps clients move beyond talking and into real change.
Ready to create a relationship you actually want to come home to? Book a consultation.