Happier at Home Read online

  If I’ve learned one thing from my happiness project, it’s that if I want my life to be a certain way, I must be that way myself. If I want my marriage to be tender and romantic, I must be tender and romantic.

  Am I tender and romantic? Am I appreciative, thoughtful, forbearing, fun loving? Or do I march around the apartment snapping out reminders and orders? Am I quick to feel annoyed or aggrieved? Do I make the “mean face”? When Jamie and I first met, I honestly wondered whether it would ever be possible for me to read when we were sitting in a room together; I found it so hard to concentrate that I couldn’t make sense of anything more complicated than the newspaper. Now, I sometimes find it hard to tear myself away from my work and email to hold up my end of a marital conversation.

  For my first happiness project, I’d followed several resolutions related to love and marriage, such as “Quit nagging,” “Don’t expect praise or appreciation,” “Fight right,” and “Give proofs of love.” Jamie’s response has been one of my happiness project’s most gratifying results. Jamie was—and remains—emphatically uninterested in crafting his own resolutions, debating the finer points of happiness philosophy, or discussing anyone’s mood. But he has changed.

  He used to have a tendency to throw in a few sarcastic comments, from time to time, or to tease with a harsh edge, and he could be a bit of a killjoy. Not too often, but sometimes. And now he does this far less often. He curbed his habit of “pestering” me—my word for the way he’d sometimes jokingly do things to drive me crazy, just to see me get hopping mad. I’d worked hard to quit nagging, and now he does more tasks without prompting. (His priorities don’t reflect my priorities, but my priorities don’t reflect his priorities; I think holiday cards are important; he thinks air-conditioning repair is important.) He’d become more thoughtful, more outwardly loving, and more likely to put away the suitcase. I’d tried to stop keeping score; as Saint Thérèse observed, “When one loves, one does not calculate.” And he’d done the same.

  I still got annoyed sometimes (actually, frequently), but I handled it better (usually). One morning, Jamie said, “Would you go get our mortgage documents?”

  “From where?” I asked blankly.

  “I don’t know. From the files.”

  “What files?”

  “Don’t we have a file called ‘Mortgage’?”

  “Do ‘we’? You tell me!” I felt irritated when Jamie talked about what “we” did, when in fact, it was all “me.”

  “We put up the decorations last week,” he’d say, or “We mailed that check last week.”

  “Come on,” he said impatiently. “Where is it?”

  For a moment, I was tempted to play out this argument, to declaim about why this “we” bothered me, why he needed to be able to locate things, why it shouldn’t always be my responsibility, but I caught myself. Did I really want to have this argument? In fact, although it was a pain, I actually preferred to be in charge of important papers. “Okay.” I sighed. “I’ll track them down.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  I was struck by a truth that I’d learned to appreciate during my first happiness project, one important enough to rocket to the status of my Sixth Splendid Truth: The only person I can change is myself. Although I’m sometimes tempted to hand Jamie a long list of all the (to my mind, quite reasonable) changes he should make to boost my happiness, the fact is, I can write that list only for myself. Nevertheless, when I changed, our relationship changed, and Jamie changed.

  I was extremely fortunate, I knew, in my husband. Jamie did change in ways that made our marriage happier, but in any event, the changes contemplated were small and manageable compared to the huge, difficult issues that many other couples face. Nevertheless, as in all things happiness related, even though I was already pretty happy in my marriage, striving for more happiness was a worthwhile aim.

  For one thing, I wanted to do more to appreciate this stage of life with Jamie. We’d been married sixteen years, so we were in the thick of middle marriage: children at home, midcareer, homeownership, milestone birthdays. I wanted to make sure that this time didn’t slip away unremarked. Each period of life has its own atmosphere, its own flavor, yet in the past, I’d failed to appreciate each stage as it was unfolding.

  I thought back to our first years together. There had been that crazy, intense period when we were newly engaged, and I was a third-year law student, working all the time on the law journal, and he was an overworked first-year associate in a law firm, and we were always taking the train between New Haven and New York. And then we’d been newly marrieds, in our first apartment furnished with wedding gifts and hand-me-down furniture from my father-in-law’s old office. (I remember being annoyed when a friend walked into the apartment and remarked, “I see what you mean about the office furniture.”) No children yet—how had Jamie and I spent our weekends, just the two of us? What did we do with our long evenings of leisure? I have no recollection. At the time, I’d never stopped to notice the particular quality of that time, though a few clear memories do blaze out from the dim muddle of days. I remember one morning in our first apartment, when Jamie woke me up to see a particularly beautiful sunrise, and one morning in our second apartment, when we woke to see snow drifting picturesquely through the cracks in the ceiling.

  Then there was our time as new parents. I remember how, in the springtime when Eliza was just a few months old, I’d walk to Jamie’s office with her in the BabyBjörn, and the three of us would walk back home together. Eliza was so tiny that I could carry her for miles without difficulty. I remember how different it felt for Jamie and me suddenly to be parents out with our child, instead of just the two of us.

  To me, Jamie looks exactly the way he has always looked, so when the girls and I pulled out some old photo albums, I was surprised to see how jet-black his hair used to be. I’d forgotten about that pair of glasses he wore for so many years. And when had he gotten rid of that green T-shirt I’d loved?

  For this happiness project, I wanted more appreciation, more tenderness, more cooperation, more fun—with Jamie. I wanted to rise above the trivial complaints and petty annoyances that could drag down our relationship.

  This is a special challenge in marriage, because studies show that married people actually treat each other with less civility than they show to other people. Whether while talking casually or working on a task, people were less courteous and tactful with a spouse than with a person they didn’t know well. These findings didn’t surprise me, but they did reinforce my determination to treat Jamie, the love of my life, with more consideration. I would never snap at a friend, “Do we have to talk about this right now?” or “Can’t you just do it?” I wanted to stop speaking that way to Jamie.

  I had high expectations for my marriage—which, I learned, was a good thing. A study led by psychologist Donald Baucom showed that husbands and wives who have reasonably high standards for romance, passion, and respect tend to have marriages that reflect those values; those with lower expectations often get what they expect. Couples who don’t tolerate much bad behavior from each other at the beginning of a relationship are happier in that relationship later.

  I wanted to expect more from myself, in my marriage.

  KISS IN THE MORNING, KISS AT NIGHT

  Experts advise parents to establish routines and rituals to provide children with a feeling of predictability, order, and connection. But adults crave these things, too.

  I resolved to make a ritual to “Kiss in the morning, kiss at night.” Every morning, every night, I would kiss Jamie. No surprise, research establishes that kissing boosts feelings of intimacy, eases stress, and encourages bonding; couples feel more connected and warmer when they touch and kiss frequently. Kissing is a very popular activity: Kissing between romantic or sexual partners is practiced in more than 90 percent of cultures.

  I considered the day’s different kissing opportunities. Every morning, I wake up at 6 a.m., well before Jamie does, so I started to kiss
him before I got out of bed. (Usually his face is buried in the pillow, so I kiss his shoulder). Then, so he’d get a kiss when he was actually awake, I kissed him before he left for work. I also gave him a proper welcome-home kiss—not just an absentminded wave from across the room, as had been my habit. Sometimes this kiss was just a quick exchange, but sometimes it turned into a real, lingering embrace. Jamie has always been good about kissing good night at bedtime, but I made sure that we never skipped a kiss.

  Yes, it felt a bit preposterous to have a kissing schedule but, I reminded myself, if something’s important to me, I should make time for it, even if that means timing kisses with the regularity of toothbrushing. I kissed Eliza and Eleanor several times each day, and I wanted lots of kisses with Jamie, too.

  Kissing at these times had the added benefit of ensuring that Jamie and I actually paid attention to each other, as we came and went from home. It was all too easy to stay absorbed in our own concerns as we rushed through the apartment. By acting more loving, I made myself feel loving—and at the same time, made Jamie feel more loved.

  Kissing also helped me to recall that silence is sometimes more comforting than conversation. One evening, Jamie seemed preoccupied, and I was ready to launch into questions like “What’s on your mind?” “Is everything okay?” “You seem distracted.” Then I realized, “Actually, Jamie really doesn’t like that kind of talk,” and instead, I gave him a long kiss. That seemed to cheer him up.

  Sometimes words only diminish what I want to convey.

  GIVE GOLD STARS

  Many people are fascinated by the happiness differences between men and women. For the most part, I don’t focus on these differences, because I think it obscures the differences among individuals. When I focus on the way “men” or “husbands” generally behave, I start to lump Jamie along with half of humanity. I find myself feeling angry or annoyed with Jamie for things he hasn’t even done; some men don’t make the bed or take out the garbage, but Jamie does.

  However, some research did shed a helpful light on our relationship. Researcher Terri Orbuch, director of the Early Years of Marriage Project (started in 1986, so by now it includes the middle years, too), concluded that after the first years of marriage, a difference arises in how men and women perceive “relationship talk.” Wives find relationship talk reassuring, because it makes them feel closer to their husbands; husbands find relationship talk upsetting, because they associate it with marital problems and blame, and they often interpret such talk as nagging. This was certainly true for Jamie. Like many longtime couples, Jamie and I had developed some private catchphrases, and for years, we’d joked about “Want to get a cup of coffee?” Early on, I’d asked Jamie this innocent question, and he’d immediately assumed a wary, hunted look. Apparently, in some earlier relationship, “getting a cup of coffee” had always led to unpleasant relationship talk.

  So I’d skip the relationship talk. On the other hand, reading Orbuch’s conclusions about the importance of affective affirmations prompted me to adopt the resolution to “Give gold stars.”

  For my first happiness project, I’d made the resolution “Don’t expect praise or appreciation.” Oh, how I yearn for applause and recognition! I always want those gold stars stuck on my homework, but Jamie doesn’t often hand them out. I wished he’d tell me I was brilliant or beautiful; I wished he’d praise me for finding those mortgage papers or for organizing the family schedule for the week. But while Jamie has many wonderful qualities, and I love him with all my heart, he doesn’t hand out gold stars, not even the occasional “Good thing you wrote down that phone number” or “You were right, we do need umbrellas.” (To be fair, he also rarely criticizes me; he never says, “Why don’t you ever suggest going to a movie or a museum?” or “Hey, Miss Happiness Project, aren’t you breaking a resolution right now?”)

  I continually battle this craving to receive gold stars, and I’ve made progress—somewhat. Reading about Orbuch’s research about “affective affirmation,” however, shifted my attention from my need for gold stars to Jamie’s need for gold stars. Predictably, studies show that receiving a spouse’s “affective affirmation”—psych-speak for a spouse’s actions or words to make the other spouse feel loved, appreciated, desired, and supported—is very important to the happiness of both husbands and wives. More surprisingly, gold stars are much more important to husbands than to wives. Why?

  Orbuch argues that husbands need more gold stars from their wives because women get much more positive support outside marriage; they want it from their husbands, yes, but they do have other sources. Family members, colleagues, friends of both genders, and even strangers give more frequent affirmation to women than to men. Men, by contrast, depend much more on their wives for reassurance and understanding: Men’s relationships tend to be less intense and supportive than women’s, and in fact, for empathy and intimacy, both men and women seek friendship with women.

  I knew I was Jamie’s main source of affective affirmation. His friends and the guys in his office weren’t handing out compliments or confiding secrets. If he wanted praise, or sympathy, or the chance to talk over a sensitive subject, he turned to me. A friend told me that she sat down at her computer one day to discover that her husband had changed her screensaver to read: “Be nice to Lloyd. Today … and every day!”

  “I laughed for five minutes the first time I saw it,” she told me. It was a good reminder, I thought, and I resolved to “Give gold stars.”

  Research shows that partners who make thoughtful efforts for each other are happier with their bond; although it’s not clear whether the consideration or the contentment comes first, they probably both feed into each other. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux declared, “It isn’t enough to love; we must prove it.” What could I say and do to “Give gold stars”?

  • When something good happened to Jamie at work, or elsewhere, I made a big fuss, and I shared the news with Jamie’s parents and my parents (he’s very modest about touting his accomplishments). Studies show that celebrating good news, and showing the happiness you feel in your partner’s accomplishments, small and large, strengthens a relationship. Being silently supportive isn’t very effective.

  • I thanked him when he tackled some chore—dealt with a tax form, assembled a piece of furniture—even if it was something he was “supposed” to do. And when Jamie solved a problem for me or gave me useful advice, I told him how helpful he’d been, instead of taking him for granted.

  • I said the words “I love you” more often. Studies show that people are more apt to feel close to a family member who often expresses affection than one who rarely does.

  • I tried to be helpful even when Jamie didn’t ask for help. For example, Jamie never takes a pain reliever unless I actually hand him two pills with a glass of water, so when he said he had a headache, I went to get them.

  • When I spoke to other people about Jamie, whether he was present or not, I said only good things—no more complaining or criticizing.

  • When I saw a sweet photo opportunity with the girls, I emailed him pictures so he knew we were thinking of him. When he was traveling, I sent quick reports about nice little things that happened.

  • If he asked, “Will you do me a favor?” I bit back my automatic response, a suspicious, “What’s the favor?” Instead, I answered, “Of course!”

  • I tried to be cheerfully accommodating, whether he wanted to go to the gym, get some work done on the weekend, leave a party early, or change plans at the last minute, or if he kept asking the same question over and over, without listening to my answer. Jamie loves to pack early for trips, and to unpack the minute we get home. I’m never in such a hurry, but that work has to be done at some point, so I began to go along with his timing.

  • When he called me, I made sure to sound pleased and engaged, not rushed or distracted. Also, I stopped reading my emails while talking to him on the phone. (So rude! But I did it. Often.)

  • Jamie, not me, research
ed vacation spots, found interesting places around New York City to visit, and bought tickets to children’s concerts, circuses, and shows. Instead of taking this for granted, as I’d done for years, I made an effort to mention how much I appreciated his planning.

  I drew up this list, and I tried to follow it; I often failed, but I tried. Jamie still had occasion to say, “Please don’t clench your jaw at me!” but I behaved better.

  This resolution also made me more attentive to Jamie’s virtues: His magnanimity and generosity. His inexplicable knowledge about everything from hip-hop music to obscure political figures. His unerring good judgment. His crazy ability to remember people’s names, faces, and backgrounds. His ability to engage with difficult people. His strengths in leadership. His unwavering calm, his perpetual good humor, his ingenuity in the face of problems. His unfailing willingness to stop for snacks.

  Now, my heroic description of Jamie may sound unrealistic. I remember that at her toast at our rehearsal dinner, my sister, Elizabeth, began, “Jamie has become an important part of my life,” and got a big laugh when she continued, “and while I don’t see him as quite the … Odyssean epic hero that Gretch does, I do love him very much.” I really believe in Jamie’s epic qualities, and even if I do idealize him just a bit, that’s a sign of strength in our marriage. Studies show that happy couples are much more likely to idealize each other, and by holding those positive perceptions, they help each other live up to them. In what’s called the “Michelangelo effect” (because Michelangelo created beautiful figures out of marble blocks), when romantic partners expect the best in each other, they help each other attain those ideals.

  As the counterpart to giving Jamie more gold stars, I also tried to stop giving him black marks; I discovered, however, that I had an easier time saying nice things than biting back critical comments. I enjoyed saying “Thanks” or “What a great solution,” but found it hard to resist saying “Haven’t you done that yet?” or “You’re not being helpful” or “I can’t believe you’ve given the girls so much ice cream.” Worst of all, I continued to make that (supposedly terrifying) “mean face” that Jamie and the girls complained about. I wanted to cut back on these unpleasant exchanges because I knew that for a happy marriage, it’s more helpful to have fewer negative experiences than to have more positive experiences.