The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin Page B

also sought the advice of nonexperts. One night, when my book group didn’t have much to say about the book we’d picked, I asked for my friends’ suggestions about marriage.
    “You should both go to bed at the same time,” said one friend. “No matter what, something good will come of it. You’ll get more sleep or have sex or have a conversation.”
    “Before I got married, my boss told me that the secret to a strong marriage is to leave at least three things unsaid each day.”
    “My husband and I never criticize each other for more than one thing at a time.”
    “My Quaker grandparents, who were married seventy-two years, said that each married couple should have an outdoor game, like tennis or golf, and an indoor game, like Scrabble or gin, that they play together.”
    When I got home, I told Jamie that rule, and the next day he brought home a backgammon set.
     
    I’d been working on giving proofs of love when I decided to push myself to the highest level of proof: a Week of Extreme Nice.
    What was “Extreme Nice”? It was an extreme sport, like bungee jumping or skydiving, that stretched me beyond my ordinary efforts, that showed me new depths within myself. All done in the comfort of my own home. For a week, I was extremely nice to Jamie. No criticism! No snapping! No nagging! I even offered to drop his shoes off at the shoe-repair shop before he asked me!
    Extreme Nice reminded me to aim for a high standard of behavior. It’s not right that I show more consideration to my friends or family than to Jamie, the love of my life. We wouldn’t be able to live together forever without a disagreement, but I should be able to go more than a week without nagging him. In a way, of course, the entire month of Februarywas an exercise in Extreme Nice, because all my resolutions worked to Jamie’s benefit. But for this week, I was going to take my niceness to a dramatic new level.
    Too often I focused on the things that annoyed me: Jamie postponed making scheduling decisions; he didn’t answer my e-mails; he didn’t appreciate what I do to make our lives run smoothly. Instead, I should have thought about all the things I love about him. He’s kind, funny, brilliant, thoughtful, loving, ambitious, sweet, a good father, son, and son-in-law, bizarrely well informed on a wide range of subjects, creative, hardworking, magnanimous. He kisses me and says, “I love you,” every night before we go to sleep, he comes to my side at parties and puts his arm around me, he rarely shows irritation or criticizes me. He even has a full head of hair.
    On the first morning of Extreme Nice, Jamie asked tentatively, “I’d like to get up and go to the gym and get it over with. Okay?” He’s compulsive about going to the gym.
    Instead of giving him a pained look or a grudging “Okay, but go ahead and go now so you can get back soon, we promised the girls we’d go to the park,” I said, “Sure, no problem!”
    It wasn’t easy.
    A moment of reframing helped. How would I feel if Jamie never wanted to go to the gym—or worse, if he couldn’t go? I have a gorgeous, athletic husband. How lucky I am that he wants to go to the gym.
    During the week of Extreme Nice, when Jamie sneaked into our bedroom to take a nap, I let him sleep while I made lunch for Eliza and Eleanor; I kept our bathroom tidy instead of leaving bottles and tubes scattered over the counter; he rented The Aristocrats, and I said, “Great!” I stopped leaving Popsicle wrappers all over the apartment. As pathetic as it is to report, each of these instances took considerable restraint on my part.
    Because of Extreme Nice, when I discovered one night that Jamie had thrown away The Economist and the Entertainment Weekly that Ihadn’t read yet, I didn’t badger him about it. When I woke up the next morning, I saw how insignificant it was and was relieved I hadn’t indulged in a scene.
    I’d always followed the adage “Don’t let the sun go down on your