The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

appreciate it, thanks so much, you’re my hero”? Did I give Jamie a big hug of gratitude? Nope. Because Jamie neglected to give me a gold star for staying up with Eleanor, I snapped, “I did appreciate it, but you never show any appreciation when I let you sleep. Then you expect a lot of gratitude when you let me sleep.” Jamie’s look made me wish I’d reacted differently. I remembered my Ninth Commandment: “Lighten up.”
    I put my arms around him. “I’m sorry. Really. I shouldn’t have talked that way, and I do appreciate getting the extra sleep this morning.”
    “You know,” he said, “I really was trying to give you a treat. And I do appreciate the fact that you let me sleep.”
    “Okay.”
    We hugged—for at least six seconds, which, I happened to know from my research, is the minimum time necessary to promote the flow of oxytocin and serotonin, mood-boosting chemicals that promote bonding. The moment of tension passed.
    This exchange led me to an important insight into how to managemyself better. I’d been self-righteously telling myself that I did certain chores or made certain efforts “for Jamie” or “for the team.” Though this sounded generous, it led to a bad result, because I sulked when Jamie didn’t appreciate my efforts. Instead, I started to tell myself, “I’m doing this for myself. This is what I want.” I wanted to send out Valentine’s cards. I wanted to clean out the kitchen cabinets. This sounded selfish, but in fact, it was less selfish, because it meant I wasn’t nagging to get a gold star from Jamie or anyone else. No one else even had to notice what I’d done.
    I remember talking to a friend whose parents had been very involved in the civil rights movement. “They always said,” he told me, “that you have to do that kind of work for yourself. If you do it for other people, you end up wanting them to acknowledge it and to be grateful and to give you credit. If you do it for yourself, you don’t expect other people to react in a particular way.” I think that’s right.
    Nevertheless, for all my talk of giving up gold stars, I have to admit that I still thought it would be nice for Jamie to hand them out a bit more lavishly. Whether or not I should want them, I do.
    FIGHT RIGHT.
    Nagging was easier to address than some other behaviors I was trying to change. I faced a tougher challenge with my second priority: lightening my attitude. Marital conflicts fall into two categories: issues that can be clearly resolved and those that can’t. Unfortunately, more conflicts fall into the open-ended “How should we spend our money?” and “How should we raise our children?” categories than into the easier “What movie should we see this weekend?” or “Where should we go on our vacation this summer?” category.
    Some disagreement is inevitable and even valuable. Since Jamie and I were going to fight, I wanted to be able to have fights that were more fun, where we could joke around and be affectionate even while we were disagreeing.
    I also wanted to conquer my own particular bosom enemy: snapping. Far too often, in a kind of one-sided minifight, I would lash out in sudden fits of temper that soured the household mood. I’d often wondered why anger—along with pride, greed, gluttony, lust, sloth, and envy—were the seven deadly sins, because they didn’t seem as deadly as lots of other sins. It turns out that they’re deadly sins not because of their gravity but because of their power to generate other, worse sins. They’re the gateway sins to the big sins. Of the seven deadly sins, anger was certainly my nemesis.
    Fighting style is very important to the health of a marriage; Gottman’s “love laboratory” research shows that how a couple fights matters more than how much they fight. Couples who fight right tackle only one difficult topic at a time, instead of indulging in arguments that cover every grievance since the first date. These couples ease into arguments instead of blowing up immediately—and avoid bombs such as “You never…” and “You always…” They know how to bring an argument to an end, instead of keeping it going for hours. They make “repair attempts” by using words or actions to keep bad feelings from escalating. They recognize other pressures imposed on a spouse—a husband acknowledges that his wife feels overwhelmed by the demands of work and home; a wife acknowledges that her husband feels caught between her and