Have you touched your spouse today? Think about that question. Really ponder it.

And I’m not necessarily talking about sex, although that certainly counts.

What I want to know is this. Can you remember the last time you hugged? Kissed? Held hands? Stroked his forearm? Ran your fingers through her hair? Did the bump? Spooned? Patted him on the back? Rubbed her feet or shoulders?

When I was working on my marriage, I thought about those very questions and my answer was, “I can’t remember.” Just couldn’t. Not only were we not having sex, we were not touching at all. Ever. We were two people who co-existed in the same bed and who only touched by accident. (Oh, sorry, I was just rolling over. I didn’t mean to punch you in the face. Really, it was an accident!)

So my husband and I embarked on a touching project. The goal was simple: touch more often.

Initially, it was forced. I’d try to hold his hand while we walked. He’s 6 foot 1. I’m 5 foot 4 on a tall day. (My doctor says I’m 5 foot 3, but I only visit the doctor when I’m experiencing a short day). To hold his hand, I had to hold my arm in an unnatural position. It was God awful uncomfortable.

It was the same with spooning. I could not find a way to snuggle my backside into his front without feeling as if I was about to be crushed to death.

And when I tried to snuggle next to him on the couch, he’d get all fidgety and complain that I was putting his arm to sleep.

Honestly, it seemed as if our marriage was doomed, you know?

But we persevered. Eventually we realized that when I lied on the couch, the side of my butt made the perfect armrest for him. Instead of holding hands, we walked with my hand in his elbow. In bed, I lightly rested my foot against his calf.

Now I hug him and give him a peck on the cheek whenever one of us leaves the house. Whenever I walk past him, I run my fingers over his back. If he says something naughty, I spank him or elbow him in the ribs. And if he’s been a really good boy, I have even been known to wake him on Sunday mornings with a back rub.

Oh, and we do high fives and fist bumps, too, because we’re young and hip like that.

I now know that I can more easily confront him if I do it with my hand on his thigh. He knows that I’m less likely to take my stressful day out on him if he rubs my shoulders, gives me a hug, or kisses me on the cheek.

Researchers say that happier couples touch more often than couples that are mired in bad marriages. They think that touch might help us relax, so our brains are more receptive to problem solving. And they even say that touch may be just as effective as words when it comes to communicating your emotions. Indeed, in one fascinating study volunteers were able to accurately communicate anger, sadness, happiness and other emotions to a blind person just by touching that person in different ways.

So make it your marriage improvement goal to touch your spouse at least once a day every day this week. Once you can accomplish that, double your touching frequency. Then double it again.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how something so simple could improve your marriage so much.

Can you remember the last time you touched your spouse? When did you stop touching your spouse? What stops you from touching your spouse? Let’s explore the challenges that hold us back in the comments.

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Does this look scary? That's why you can't save your marriage.

I get a lot of emails that go something like this:

My husband is condescending, annoying and downright mean. He hates me. He complains about everything that I do. I work my butt off trying to make him happy and I never get a thank you. The only time he ever remotely smiles at me is when he wants to have sex. And I am no longer attracted to him. I don’t know if I ever was. My marriage is dead. I hate my in-laws. I don’t know why I ever married him. We have nothing in common. He is mean to my friends. He’s a terrible father. I’ve tried everything and nothing ever changes. Help!

If I write back and say, “It sounds like your marriage might be broken. Maybe it’s time to consider divorce,” I usually get back something like this, “Oh, he’s not so bad. Things are okay.”

Are you confused? I certainly was for a long time.

And then I thought back to my own marital problems. When things were at their worst, I would go out to dinner with friends. They’d ask me about Mark. I’d rant and rant and rant. I would say that my marriage was dead. I would say all sorts of things about his character. Oh, I had a good, long, satisfying rant.

But if someone asked anything to the effect of, “Why don’t you leave him?” I would back off pretty quickly.

Why? Because the misery I knew was less scary than what I didn’t know, and what I didn’t know was this:

1) Could my life become even worse if I left him?

2) Could my marriage become even worse if I tried to improve it?

The first one is self-explanatory, yes? (No?) The second one? Not so much, even though most of us are guilty of succumbing to that second fear quite often. For instance, how many times have you read a piece of marital advice—either here or elsewhere—and thought, “I can’t do THAT. If I did that, _____ would happen”?

For example:

• I can’t go over my grudge list with my husband or we’ll get in a big huge fight and I’ll end up throwing a wine glass in his face.
• I can’t give my wife a compliment. She’ll just say something snotty in return.
• I can’t have sex with my husband. It will be torture. I just know it.
• I can’t tell my husband what I’m thinking. He’ll just ignore me anyway.

These are all examples of what psychologists call mind reading and fortune-telling. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t go to school for either of those. I can’t read minds and I can’t see into the future.

Chances are, you probably can’t either.

Which means that all of those excuses for not saving your marriage come down to one thing: fear of the unknown.

Let me tell you something that I learned from fixing my marriage:

Fear is almost always worse than reality.

As Seth Godin so aptly put it in a recent post: Anxiety is nothing but re-experiencing failure in advance. What a waste.

In other words, what we imagine we will experience is usually much scarier than what we actually will experience if we face our fear. If you keep a journal, you will be able to prove this to yourself. Jot down what you are afraid to do and why. Rank your fear on a misery scale of 1 to 10. Then do it. No matter what transpires—good or bad—rank how you feel about the end result on the same misery scale. See which is worse—the misery you thought you would experience or the misery you actually did experience.

Let me tell you something I learned from my Karma Project:

The vast majority of people are inherently good, and that includes your spouse.

You only perceive them as bad because you can’t empathize with their suffering and why they make the choices they do. Most people act in hurtful ways for one of four reasons:

1. Conditioning. This is what they learned from their parents. It’s the only way they know.
2. Ignorance. They don’t know that they are being hurtful.
3. Fear. They are afraid of the opposite behavior. (In other words, “If I’m nice, people will think I’m a doormat.)
4. It’s the only thing they know. No one ever taught them an alternative, and this behavior has gotten them what they’ve wanted in the past.

Note that “because they enjoy watching you suffer” is not one of those reasons. Again, you can prove this to yourself. Before each and every interaction, tell yourself, “All people are inherently good. All people want to do good.” Then treat people as if you thought they were as good as Mother Teresa or some other Saint of your choosing. See what happens. I think you’ll be surprised. (Note: Serial killers might be an exception to this rule).

Now, let me tell you one more thing about fear of failure:

Doing nothing is worse than trying something and failing.

Some of the things that you try to improve your marriage will not work. But that’s okay! At least now you know what doesn’t work! Think of marriage improvement as a science experiment. You are trying different hypotheses and testing to see if they have validity. Some won’t. Some will. But the only way you can see what works is to try something, anything, and everything. If you do nothing, your marriage will continue to be miserable or it will get worse. That’s a given. If you do something, your marriage might improve.

So pick something to try, either from one of my past posts, from a book or from another marriage improvement site. Tell a friend that you are going to try it (to keep yourself accountable). Pretend you are on a roller coaster with the harness locked over your body and after it has pulled from the gate. Your plan is already in motion. You can’t get off. Take a deep breath and take your marriage for a ride.

What are you afraid of? What have you thought of trying, but come up with an excuse for not trying? Why have you chickened out of marital improvement? Do you think I’m full of compost? Can you come up with a good reason for not trying? Leave a comment.

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This question came in from a reader.

My husband is a political junkie. He watches as many news shows as he can. He listens to talk radio all day and is constantly checking news websites. He reads the entire opinion section of the newspaper and any other articles that are politically based.  Then he rants against whoever or whatever has affronted his political leanings. He rants during the evening when we’re trying to relax. He rants in the car when we are driving to the store. He rants at the restaurant when we have a date. And, worst of all, he rants first thing in the morning. I’ve told him “no politics” before 8:00 a.m., but he just can’t resist. He reads the newspaper first thing so he’s pretty wound up by the time I’m out of the shower. When I can’t stand it anymore and it’s a good day I’ll ask him if we can talk about something else. On a bad day I just snap at him and tell him to shut up. No matter how I ask, he gets offended and sulks for hours. It’s getting to the point that I don’t want to be in the same room with him anymore! Help! – Death By Politics

Dear Death By Politics,

There’s hope. I know this because James Carville–a democratic strategist who got Bill Clinton elected–is still married to Republican pundit Mary Matalin. And the two have not killed each other yet. If they’ve found a way to agree to disagree, you can, too.

Exactly how you should go about accomplishing it, though, I’m not sure. My husband and I not only share the same political views, neither one of us cares to talk about those views all that often. We’re just not hot and sassy that way. We’re not ranters.

But were he to suddenly start ranting, this is what I think I would do.

1. Explain how I feel when he rants: anxious, stressed, on edge, worried that he’s going to displace his anger over politics and project it onto me.
2. Tell him that I love him. This is about the behavior. It’s not about him.
3. Ask him to help me solve the problem. Any solution will work, as long as it works for both of us. Maybe we establish a No Ranting Hour. Maybe I wear Sound Proof Headphones in the morning. Maybe he reads the paper outside of the house, where I’m not around. Maybe we give him a ranting spot (sort of like a crying spot that some parents give to toddlers). He can rant all he wants in that spot, but nowhere else.

I’m not saying that those solutions will work for you. I’m just saying that those are possibilities. I’m sure (I hope!) the regular readers of ProjectHappoilyEverAfter.com will come up with other, better solutions.

Readers: help Death By Politics. How can she peacefully co-exist with her husband? What should she do? What would you do if you were in her situation?

And, as always, be kind to one another. We’re all human beings with real feelings. It’s okay to disagree and offer conflicting opinions, but please don’t insult one another for those opinions.

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I tend to clam up whenever I’m under stress. If someone asks me if something is wrong, I generally say, “No.” I might give my husband a longer answer. Instead of “no” he’ll get “it’s work” or “I had a pissy day” or “that effing project is still driving me crazy.”

But in the absence of a glass or two of wine, those are all of the details I’m usually willing to part with. This doesn’t bother my husband, possibly because conflict makes him uncomfortable.

Me? I can’t stand it when the tables are turned and he’s sulking in silence.

Can’t. Stand. It.

I’m a highly empathetic person who feels the pain of others as if it’s my own. And when someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on, I feel even more pain than the person I’m worried about because my catastrophic thoughts have me imagining all sorts of unlikely yet horrific things that the person who won’t talk must be going through.

And since I’m imagining the worst, it’s really hard for me to just sit back and watch someone suffer. I feel the need to do something.

So I find myself asking, “Are you okay? Are you sure? Is there anything I can do? Do you want to talk about it? How can I help? I’m here! Are you sure you don’t want to talk? Are you sure nothing is wrong? Would you tell me if something was wrong? Why not? I’m here to comfort you. You’ll feel better if you talk about it….”

As I’ve said those words in the past, I’ve watched my husband retreat deeper and deeper into his turtle shell. I could tell that I wasn’t being helpful. But I felt the need to try to help anyway.

Recently, however, I had a revelation. I discovered a way to alleviate my anxiety without making him uncomfortable in the process.

A couple weeks ago, my husband was upset. He told me why he was upset, and then he stopped talking. For some reason, this time, I sensed that he was done talking. I did not ask another question. Instead I hugged him, came onto him, and gave him a blowjob. As I was going down on him, he said with a huge smile and happy tone of voice, “Woman, you are going to make me forget all of my troubles aren’t you?” I said, “Yes, indeed, I am.”

And, for a short while, I did.

Afterward, I said, “I can’t tell if you want to talk or not. In case you want to be left alone, I won’t ask you about it again. If you want to talk, I’m here.”

And I said no more. Yes, of course, it was hard. I had to hold myself back. But I could tell it was the right thing to do. It was what he needed. I was able to help him by not helping him. And I could feel good about that.

Talk About Your Sulking Strategy

Some people, of course, are the opposite of my husband. If their wives went down on them when they were upset, they might—I don’t know—get confused. (I’m curious. To my male readers: would any of you turn away a blow job if you were sad or stressed?) Other people need to talk and be held and surrounded by people when they are stressed and sad. Some just want a dark room, some ice cream, and a warm dog.

We all sulk differently. For that reason, I think it’s probably a good idea to talk with your spouse about how you both prefer to be comforted when you’re sad, anxious or stressed. Do you prefer to:

• Be left alone?
• Be held, but not questioned?
• Be questioned until you come out with it?
• Be loved and adored? (With holding, hugs, kisses, or a blowjob)
• Something else?

Talk about how you want your spouse to be there for you. Also, come up with some code phrases or gestures that you’ll both understand during the heat of the moment. For instance, if you like to suffer in silence, it might be as simple as the hand. If you like company, it might be reaching your arms out in a hugging gesture. That way, you don’t have to ask for help or ask to be left alone. Your partner will know, based on your predetermined cue.

How do you comfort your spouse? How does your spouse comfort you? Do you prefer to be left alone? Or do you prefer to talk when you are upset? What challenges have you faced with comforting or being comforted by your spouse? Leave a comment.

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How Animal Planet Ruined My Kid for Life

AKA

Yet Another Bad Mommy Moment

I’m a relatively intelligent human being.

I feel the need to stipulate that fact before I tell you this story.

I feel that need because I worry that you will think that I am the antithesis of intelligent after you read this.

Indeed, this is probably one of those stories that a weaker person would keep to herself. After all, if the world doesn’t know you are clueless, are you really clueless? Still, I’ve decided to share it because so many of you have thanked me for allowing you to feel normal. If nothing else, I can use this moment for good—to make the rest of you realize that you are better parents than you thought you were before you read this post.

I also feel the need to tell you that, as a health writer, I am well aware of the research about kids and media. I know all about how televisions, video games, the Internet and cell phones are melting their eyeballs, giving them all sorts of learning disorders, and fattening them as if they were Thanksgiving turkeys.

I know all of that, but I’m a self-employed working mom, and I’m not blessed with kind of income that would allow me to afford a live-in Nanny.

Therefore, when I have a humongous looming deadline, I have been known to do the unthinkable, which is this: use my television to baby-sit my child.

There. I said it.

But that’s the least of the story. There’s more. A lot more.

This has been a busy workweek for me. I’ve been writing with a “your deadline was yesterday” deadline. I was falling behind and needed some extra hours to catch back up.

So, last night, I asked my daughter if she wanted to watch TV while I worked.

There was a nice show about sharks on Animal Planet. My 5 year old loves sharks almost as much as she loves Star Wars (more on Star Wars in a second). So I turned it on.

My computer is in the same room as the TV, so it’s not as if she was completely unsupervised. I mean: I was right there.

Sort of. It must be said that when I write, I get really focused, so focused that my husband could completely disrobe and do 100 jumping jacks and I would not notice.

So focused that Hugh Jackman could walk up to me, offer to give me oral, disrobe, and do 100 jumping jacks and I would not notice.

When I write, it’s as if the rest of the world does not exist. It’s just me and my keyboard.

That’s why I didn’t truly hear my daughter when she told me that she needed me.

That’s why, when my brain picked up the faintest hint of the words, “Mommy, I need you,” I said what I generally say when she asks for my attention and I’m not really paying attention to what she is saying. It was this: In a minute.

She asked again. I said “in a minute again.”

She whined, “It’s been more than a minute.”

I said, “I just need one more minute.”

She said, “But Mommy! I’m scared.”

I said, “Yeah, right.”

I felt one of those prickly sensations on the back of my neck, the kind that you get when someone is staring at you. I looked up. She was standing there and tears were running down her face.

I looked at the TV. For some reason the nice show about sharks was not playing. Instead it was a show about what happens when some clueless human being like me gets the bright idea to sneak into the animal enclosure at the zoo.

A woman was holding onto a rope. People were trying to hoist her out. She was screaming. A polar bear was eating her rear end.

I thought, “How do I turn it off? How do I turn it off? How? How? Where’s the remote? Where is that stupid thing? Where? Where?”

I finally turned it off.

I hugged her. I apologized for being the worst mother in the entire universe.

She said, “When I tell you to sit next to me, I really mean it!”

I told her that I was sorry. Again.

And then I let her watch Phineas and Ferb to take her mind off things.

The very next morning, she asked if she could watch You Tube on my computer. I agreed, but this time I was smarter. I stood right next to her as she clicked on various videos. I’d learned my lesson.

She found a video that someone had taped at Disney World. It depicted various Star Wars characters dancing to music.

It was as rated G as rated G gets. I decided it was safe to take a bathroom break.

While in the bathroom, I heard her yell, “Can I watch the next video that has a dancing Storm Trooper?”

Assuming that it was a part 2 of the Disney video, I said, “Sure honey.”

After finishing in the bathroom, I headed right back to the computer. I found my daughter watching this video and imitating the dance moves. If she teaches this dance to her other kindergarten friends, I’m toast.

After all of that, I can understand why you might not trust my judgment, but I feel the need to tell you this anyway. I recently did a podcast with Corey Allan at SimpleMarriage.net and Gina Parris of GinaParris.com. It was about how to have sex after marriage, among other things. You can find it here.

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You think I’m being sarcastic, don’t you? I’m not.

She’s the next female feminist role model, not to mention the female superhero for every Geek, Nerd, and Out-of-Place-Feeling Person in the entire world.

If you don’t believe me, just you wait and see.

In the event you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me back up a tad. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the bestselling crime novel by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. I don’t normally read crime novels because I like to think of myself as above all of that. Thrillers, crime novels, mysteries and romance novels are to book snobs what box wine is to wine snobs. They are so easy to read that one feels as if one is cheating.

Therefore such books cannot be devoured in public.

That said, I also rarely read books by foreign authors because the long foreign sounding names and the varied cultural differences make them a tad, em, too hard to read.

Just being honest.

But I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – which is both a crime novel and foreign—because my friend Julie Roads told me that I would love it.

And I trust Julie’s taste in books.

After about 100 pages, the long funny-sounding Swedish names stopped slowing me down. And then I got completely sucked in.

I’m not even going to attempt to summarize the plot for you because it would ruin everything. What I will say is this: this is not your typical crime novel. The hero and heroine are actually real characters who could exist in real life. The villains are real villains who could exist, too. As a result, the book is creepy, scary, and engrossing—because you completely bond with the main characters and you completely believe that the villains are right there in your living room about to torture you to death.

The movie debuted a few days ago in Florida and will play in most theaters starting March 19.

But it played in my living room last week.

That’s right. I got my hands on an advance copy DVD because this blog is part of a scavenger hunt designed to promote said movie. (See the end of the post for more about the hunt). And, yes, I’m bragging about it. I got to see a movie before anyone else got to see it! You must understand what an anomaly this is. I JUST saw Slum Dog Millionaire two weeks ago. I saw Million Dollar Baby earlier this year and Annie Hall not long before that.

And I still haven’t seen the Godfather.

Or Titanic.

See? That’s why I feel special, as I’m usually the last person on the planet to see anything.

But I was one of the first to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

And so was my husband. My husband usually only watches action, horror, and dumb guy (defined as anything with Will Ferrell and/or farting jokes) movies. When I told him that I wanted to watch a foreign film with subtitles, he told me that he was feeling sleepy and was thinking about going to bed. It was only 8 p.m.

But then he caught a glimpse of a lesbian sex scene. He sat right next to me for the rest of the movie. Unfortunately for him, there was only one lesbian sex scene to be had. But there were plenty of really scary parts.

But I’m not going to tell you about those because I don’t want to ruin it for you.

I’m just going to tell you about Lisbeth. She’s tiny. She dresses in black. She rides a moped. She has about 6 nose rings. And she can swing a golf club and hack into a computer like nobody’s business.

She also has a huge tattoo on her back.

Whether or not you think that her tattoo looks like a dragon might depend, in part, on whether you’ve read the book. Case in point: after the movie ended, my husband asked, “So who was the girl with the dragon tattoo?”

The makeup crew might want to do something about that before the second movie comes out.

Anyway, despite the fact that her tattoo doesn’t look like a dragon, Lisbeth (aka The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo!) is my new imaginary heroine. She’s mesmerizing.

She’s smart.

She’s strong.

She kicks ass.

She overcomes some major hardship.

She sticks it to a misogynist. And I mean that quite literally.

Just thinking about her makes me feel as if I can do anything.

She is the next Lara Croft, but better. She makes geek and nerd and misfit and small boobs seem ultimately cool.

Read the blog about the movie.

Learn more about the movie,including when it will be playing near you.

Join the Dragon Tattoo Blog HUNT - an Internet wide scavenger hunt tied to the feature film launch of bestselling book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Win great prizes – a NOOK!, free movie tickets, books, movie soundtrack, posters and more. To join the contest, start at the beginning of the HUNT by visiting www.dragontattoofilm.com/contest for full details and the first clue. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is in theaters near you starting March 19th.

THE NEXT CLUE:

Like they say, it’s all in the family. In Dragon Tattoo, there are some good eggs and some really, really bad ones. This blogger, Mr. Eastman, kept his first genealogy database on 80-column punch cards, thankfully, he now has an online genealogy newsletter.

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Toward the end of my 4-month marriage improvement project, I read a book that suggested I get to know my husband on a deeper level by asking him about the meaning of life.

Before I go on, I’m just curious. How many of you think that’s a swell idea? Don’t read on until you’ve decided. Really, don’t. Just think about it. Good idea or bad idea? I’d really love to know what you think. And if you read on, my story will bias you. So think about it. Then read on.

Whether you thought about it or not, this is how my meaning of life discussion went.

Me: What’s the meaning of life?

Him: Beer.

Me: No, really. Be honest.

Him: Yes, really. It’s beer.

Me: I don’t know why I stay married to you.

See? It didn’t get us anywhere. Maybe we should have smoked a joint first.

Oh, man, there I go again—putting things out in cyberspace that are going to bar me from ever working in corporate America again.

Although the Meaning of Life Question did not help me grow closer to my husband, I do like the idea behind it. I like it for two reasons.

1. Part of what attracted us to our spouses all those years ago were those long telephone talks and late night discussions. Do you remember those? You could not get enough of each other. And you felt so special and adored because your spouse kept asking you question after question. Didn’t you love being listened to? And didn’t you love learning about your spouse? I know I did. Yet, if you are like me, then those heart felt discussions stopped somewhere after you discovered how you each lost your virginity and before the birth first of your first child. If you are like me, your conversations eventually were reduced to one-word answers, grunts, and surface talk about the weather and your bank account balance. Yawn. Boring. Midlife crisis waiting to happen, right?

2. During a lifetime, people change. Your spouse is not the same person you married. You are not the same person your spouse married. If only you could find a way to unlock the mystery of one another! You’d have something interesting to talk about! Just imagine it. You could fall in love with each other all over again. Dinner would suddenly become the most exciting part of your day!

The problem, of course, is two fold. One, you need to have faith in the idea that your spouse really is an interesting human being who is capable of talking about things other than the weather. Two, you need to ask the right questions, ones that will stimulate discussions about all of those things you still do not know about one another.

What to Ask

Here are some questions that might work for you. Please report back and let me know if you tried them and how it went, as I’m supposed to talk about “Conversation Starters for Conversation Starved Marriages” on TV in a couple weeks. Ladies: please know that I put all of these questions through the Cave Man Test. In other words, I asked my husband whether or not he would answer them, evade them, make a joke about them, or refuse to answer. He said that he would answer every single one of them. By the way, he said he would not answer the question, “What most embarrasses you?” so I suggest you stay away from that bombshell.

1. Is there anything you are afraid to tell me?
2. If money were no object, what would you do for a living?
3. Heck, if money were no object and you never had to work a day for the rest of your life, how would you prefer to spend each and every day? (Note: my husband said he would answer this, but he said the question was rather long. Speak slowly and shorten as needed.)
4. Do you have any regrets? Is there anything you wish you could do over?
5. Why did you fall in love with me?
6. Why do you love ________? (For instance, “Why do you love riding your bike?”)
7. What would make life no longer worth living? (Note: when I asked my husband this question, I was convinced that he would tell me that life would not be worth living if he could not ride his bike. Instead he said, “My penis could fall off.” See? That was interesting! I had no idea!)
8. Is there anything you want to do before you die?
9. What’s the hardest thing you ever accomplished?
10. Of what are you most proud?

Postscript: I happened to read “Sweet Romantic Pick Up Lines That Work” at ItMightBeLove.com as I was thinking about this post. I realized that most of the pick up lines double as conversation starters for married couples. They’re worth checking out. But please know that I have not put any of them to the Cave Man Test. So tread carefully.

Do you have any conversation starters that you’d like to share? Have you ever talked about the meaning of life? If so, how did it go?

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I’ve Lost a Great Mentor, and This is My Tribute to Him

Earlier this week, I got the news that Jeff Bredenberg—a colleague, mentor, and man I’ve greatly admired—had died of a brain tumor.

Immediately I thought back years—nearly 20 years in fact—to the day that Jeff interviewed me for my first post-collegiate job. I interviewed with him in 1992, during the first George Bush recession. Before interviewing with Jeff, I’d applied to nearly a hundred newspapers. I’d been rejected from all, including a newspaper in the middle of nowhere in Texas. That paper was situated in a town that had no running water—in a town that was plagued by a cholera epidemic.

With so many qualified newspaper reporters out of work, getting a job seemed impossible. So I’d talked with a couple journalism majors about going to Prague post graduation, where we dreamed of living in youth hostels and surviving off the income we received from working at the one English language newspaper there.

Out loud, I said it was my dream. Out loud, I even said that I didn’t want to find a job, because Prague seemed so much cooler.

In reality, the idea of traveling to Prague scared the crap out of me. Where would I live? How would I earn enough money? What if I didn’t know what anyone was saying?

Truth be told, I’ve never been one of those interesting US citizens who has the courage to live in other countries like Prague. No, I’m a regular everyday person who likes to live in places she knows—where everyone speaks her language and where the comfort of a good hamburger is never far away.

So when the News-Journal, a paper where I’d completed two internships, advertised an entry-level position for a community reporter, I applied.

You must understand that, at age 21, I was quite the nervous little bundle of energy. With my hands shaking, my voice an octave or two higher than normal, and sweat on my brow, I showed Jeff one clip after another. I showed him clips from my internships at the News-Journal, from my internship at the Pueblo Chieftain, from my days at the student run college newspaper, and even from my time at my high school newspaper.

It was a rather large pile of newspaper.

In my nervousness, I knocked that great big pile on the floor.

Jeff helped me to pick it all up. And then with the kindest expression on his face and with a twinkle in his eyes, he asked, “Are you a little nervous?”

There was no sarcasm there. His tone of voice was one of compassion.

With a head tick and full body tremor, I answered, “Just a little.”

He said, “There’s nothing to be nervous about. You have the job. You had it before you sat down. Congratulations. You’re hired.”

He shook my sweaty hand.

For the next few years, I worked with Jeff at the News-Journal. Then I followed him to Rodale, Inc., where we both worked in the books division. He recruited me to work at Intelihealth.com after that, and I almost followed him there, too. But, at that time, I had a seriously cush position as an editor at Runner’s World magazine. They paid me to run a marathon in Hawaii. Who would give that up?

Jeff and I both went freelance around the same time, and, as freelance writers, we worked on some projects together, too.

At his memorial service, I only knew two other people, but I soon realized that we all had something in common. We all had known the same Jeff. I knew Jeff as the quirky guy who described the experience of appearing on the Rachel Ray show as, “a hoot.” The scouts he led described him as a quirky guy who woke them each morning of a camping trip by singing, “Zippity Doo Dah.”

I knew Jeff as the guy who always seemed happy, no matter what was going on in his life. His closest friends and neighbors said he even faced death with a smile. Indeed, Jeff, an author of a popular how-to book series called “How to Cheat at____” started writing his final book after his diagnosis. It was to be called, “How To Cheat at Death.” He never finished it, but he read a portion of it during a service he designed for himself about a month before he died.

As I listened to so many people describe him, I wondered whether I had ever thanked him for hiring me for that first job and for being so kind during the interview. I could not remember.

I thought about other people in my life—people who are still of this world. Had I thanked them? Had I told them how much I’ve admired them? Had I told them how great they are?

Or had I kept these feelings to myself, under the flawed assumption that they would still be around another year or 5 or 20?

Do I take people for granted? Does my inherent shyness prevent me from being effusive and telling people how wonderful they are? Are there some people, like Jeff, whom I see rarely and, by default, I rarely remember to thank, until it’s too late?

Why does it take the death of someone I love for me to wake up and realize that life is fleeting?

I don’t know the answers to those questions. What I do know is this. I am going to try my hardest to learn two lessons from Jeff’s life.

1. I will strive to be more like Jeff. Like Jeff, I want to honor the goodness in others rather than fixate on their faults. Like Jeff, I want to help and mentor others whenever possible. Like Jeff, I want to take on life with bemusement. Like Jeff I will cheat death by facing this terminal illness called life with my all.

2. I will live each day as if it’s everyone’s last. I will not wait until it’s too late to tell others how much they mean to me. I want “I love you” and “thank you” and “you are awesome” to be phrases that I use several times a day. I will use these phrases with my husband, my daughter, my parents, my siblings, my friends, my colleagues, and the random people I encounter wherever I go.

What have you learned from the passing of others? How have you honored the memory of those who you’ve loved? What are some things that we can all do to remind ourselves of fleeting nature of life? How can we motivate ourselves to continually live each day as if it were the last day we all had to live? Let me know your thoughts.

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I might be the only woman in the world who did not finish Elizabeth Gilbert’s famed Eat, Pray, Love. I did read the Italy part of the book, and part of India, too. And that much of the book affected me in a major way. For instance, before I’d picked up that book, I’d thought Italy was overrated. It was the place where everyone else went. Therefore I did not need to go there. No, people like me? We went to unusual places, like South Africa and Iceland. We did not go to Italy.

This summer, I will turn 40. Thanks to Gilbert, I’m going to celebrate that milestone by going to Italy—Tuscany to be precise—so I can take some cooking classes, not to mention eat a lot of fattening food and drink a lot of wine. I suppose I’ll have to eat a cream puff in Gilbert’s honor as well. I don’t know how I’m going to fund this trip. But I do know that it’s going to happen.

Before I picked up Eat, Pray, Love, it had never occurred to me to write about my life. My life? BO-RING. That’s really what I thought. But Gilbert’s voice was so fresh and so fun and so something that it made me think, “Maybe I could have as much fun with my writing as she is having with hers.” Now I blog and I have a memoir coming out in January.

Indeed, the half of Eat, Pray, Love that I did read changed me.

I suppose the half that I didn’t read might have changed me even more had I not gotten bored in India. At some point after reading about meditation and floor scrubbing and that Texan guy, I closed the book, put it down, and let it sit for months.

That book sat unloved for so long that I eventually felt sorry for it. I gave it to my mother.

I don’t know if she ever opened it.

What I do know is this. People tell me that I should not have stopped at India. They tell me that I really ought to have kept going. They say that Indonesia is the best part of that book. They’ve even said that my life will be forever incomplete unless I resume my reading and get to the end of the book.

I found this intriguing. Wouldn’t you? So not long ago, when I noticed Eat, Pray, Love on my mother’s bookshelf, I asked her if I could have it back.

I put it on my bookshelf. There it sat.

And it sat there for months as I read other novels, other memoirs, and other self-help books.

Then a friend mentioned that she’d always wanted to read Eat, Pray, Love. I gave her my copy. The book deserved to be loved. Maybe she would give it the love that I had not.

Alas, I am still Indonesia deficient.

But that did not stop me from buying and reading Committed, Gilbert’s follow up to Eat, Pray, Love. I bought it for two reasons. One, it’s about marriage. I write a marriage blog. Duh.

Two, I have developed a wicked crush on Elizabeth Gilbert. If I were a lesbian, I’d be stalking her.

The crush started long after I didn’t finish Eat, Pray, Love. It started about a year ago, after I watched Gilbert’s TED lecture about trying to write a book after one has already written the biggest book one will probably ever write. I laughed. I cried. I commiserated.

I wanted to get in her pants.

And I began looking forward to her upcoming work with bated breath. I planned to read Committed and then write Gilbert, telling her, “It’s a fantastic book. You worried all this time for nothing. It’s even BETTER than Eat, Pray, Love. I didn’t even finish Eat, Pray, Love, but I finished Committed!”

And finish it I did. I finished it in just 1.5 days.

Committed is based on the year Gilbert spent coming to terms with the fact that she had to marry Felipe, who, had I read to the end of Eat, Pray, Love, would have already been familiar to me as the Brazilian guy she meets in Indonesia.

Gilbert had to marry Felipe because he was not a US citizen. Homeland Security barred him from ever entering the US again unless he married Gilbert.

Gilbert spent a year traveling through Southeast Asia with Felipe as the two waited for attorneys in the US to take care of the essential paperwork that would allow the two to marry. As they traveled, Gilbert fretted about the meaning and purpose of marriage. Could she possibly do it again? Would a legally binding marriage destroy their relationship? Was she cut out for marriage?

Oh, she had a lot of questions. How can one know for sure that one will not cheat on one’s spouse at one point in the next 60 years? Why do some people have affairs and others stay monogamous? Is it possible to love just one person and only one person for life? What is the difference between infatuation and love? Is there really a way for a woman to marry a man without losing a big piece of her self in the process? Why do some people fall out of love?

Her questions led her to interview women who lived in the small villages in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. She also interviewed her mother, her friends, her sister—basically anyone who might have a take on the meaning and importance (or lack there of) of marriage. She read philosophical texts, historical texts and religious texts.

As I read, I found myself staring into space and thinking deeply about the many questions she raised. I imagined myself sitting down to beer and a slice of pizza with Gilbert. I would soothe her fears by telling her about my bad marriage gone good. This is what, during that imaginary meeting over pizza, I told her:

Elizabeth, yes, you might lose a part of yourself during marriage. Yes, you’ll probably have to compromise. Yes, you might one day find yourself doing things for him that you never in a zillion years thought you would find yourself doing. For instance, you might one day find yourself nicely folding his tightie whities and putting them in a neat pile in his drawer. Yes, you the intelligent, creative career woman might do that. Indeed, marriage changes a woman. But in exchange for whatever parts of yourself that you lose, you will gain something in return. Marriage, in its healthiest essence, is a partnership—it’s a business partnership, a child rearing partnership (if a couple chooses to spawn), and it’s a spiritual partnership. It’s about two people growing together and sacrificing together and supporting each other.

Elizabeth, let me tell you this. Five years ago I worked like a dog so my husband could start a business.  Would I have done that had we not been married? I don’t think so. Lately, he’s been doing 80 percent of the household chores because I’ve been focused on my career. Would he do that were we just living together? I don’t know for sure, but I kind of doubt it.

Elizabeth, marriage allows you to take greater risks.

Marriage gives you the security you need to help each other chase down dreams.

In marriage, two halves do not make a whole. But two wholes can add up to a greater sum than two.

This, of course, doesn’t happen in all marriages. In some, the opposite takes place. In some, two halves remain two halves that are glued together by co-dependence. In others, two wholes add up to two wholes that have nothing in common.

But, Elizabeth, Felipe sounds like a wonderful husband who is a complete person. And you sound like a wonderful wife who is a complete person. Because of this, I know that your 1 plus 1 will add up to more than 2. It might not add up like that today or tomorrow, but it will eventually add up to 2.5 or 3 or possibly even 4. And, when it does, you’ll understand what marriage is all about. Trust me.

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Download your copy of Project Happily Ever After: Relationship Rules.

In this free e-book, you’ll learn some of the strategies I used to turn my Mr. Good for Nothing into my Mr. Good for Something, including ten Relationship Rules.

How to Stop Nagging Your Spouse

Last week’s Marriage Improvement Monday gave you a strategy for forgiving your spouse of past indiscretions. Someone rightly asked in the comments, “But how do I forgive my spouse for something he’s doing right now—and keeps doing over and over again?” I’m glad she asked.

You can’t forgive until you see a change in behavior, and you can’t see a change in behavior until you ask for one.

But then, sometimes, even when you ask for a change in behavior, you still don’t seem to get it. So you resort to nagging. “Could you PLEASE vacuum the floor? I’ve already asked you 10 times!” And nagging usually leads to one thing: you planning your spouse’s funeral.

My Story

I went through this with my husband with two issues. One was housework. The other was The Voice, and the way he talked to me as if I were stupid. There was a time in my marriage when I didn’t think either issue would ever be solved. There was a time when I thought that I’d be doing 90 percent of the housework for the rest of my life. And I thought he’d be talking down to me for the rest of my life, too.

But now neither is the case. Although he certainly regresses every now and again, we’ve addressed both issues. The rest of this post explains how we did it.

Pick One Grievance

You probably have 2 or 3 or 168 issues that you’d like to solve in your marriage but, for now, pick just one. Discussing more than one issue at a time is not only overwhelming, and it sets you and your spouse up for failure. Your spouse is probably capable of changing one small aspect of his or her behavior in the short term. She or he probably isn’t capable of changing 60 million aspects of it.

Explain How the Problem Affects You

It’s important not to blame here. As soon as you go down that “you are a bad spouse because you do this” road, your spouse will check out. Therapists will tell you to talk in “I statements,” which are great if you can pull that off. I never could. Trying to talk in “I statements” made talking seem too dang hard, so I almost stopped talking all together. Instead, now I just try to explain how a behavior affects me. Sometimes I don’t even mention the behavior. I just state a problem.

For instance, about housework I might say, “I’m stressed and overwhelmed right now. I wish I could spend more quality time with you and Kaarina, but I just can’t get on top of things. Could you help more with the housework? I was thinking that we might all work on it together at the same time. Like every Sunday morning we all do housework together until it’s done.”

Actually I did say that, and that is what now we do.

About the talking down to me, I said, “Sometimes when you talk to me, I feel like you think I’m stupid.”

My husband had no idea. He really didn’t. He felt horrible that he’d been affecting me that way and he promised to stop.

Create a Code Word

Now, your spouse is going to regress. Expect that. And understand it. It takes an enormously long time to change a bad habit. If you are a parent, you already know this because you know just how long it took to, say, teach your child not to whine at the dinner table. Also, think about any self-improvement you’ve done in the past. Have you ever tried to stop gossiping or to stop lying or something else? Then you know it took a very long time before you completely stopped. You regressed a lot.

Your spouse will, too.

The irritating problem with regression, though, is that you will start to feel like a broken record, saying things like, “You agreed to do the housework and now you are sitting on the couch watching football!”

That’s why you need a code word, code sentence or code phrase regarding this change in behavior—and you need your spouse to know what it is. When I was trying to get my husband to stop talking down to me, my phrase was, “Please don’t talk to me like that.” Toward the end, when he hardly did it at all, my phrase was “you did it again” with a playful smack on the ass. It was just enough to help him see and correct the behavior, but not so much that I felt as if I was nagging.

With the housework, it was, “Can you help me with this?” and “I could really use some help.”

Reward Your Spouse

Too often in marriage, we function only with punishments. He doesn’t do the housework. You decide that you no longer wish to have sex. She nags you about the housework. You decide to ignore her because she knows you hate it when she nags.

After a while, the punishments fail to motivate.

Instead, switch to rewards. Whenever your spouse does what you’ve asked, say, “Thank you.” If appropriate, offer a hug. Or a kiss. Or the beauty of your naked body.

Be Patient

This is important. People don’t change overnight. Keep reminding yourself of that. Try to notice the positive changes and forgive the backsliding. Eventually, you’ll solve this problem and you’ll be able to tackle another one.

Let me know how it works for you.

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Download your copy of Project Happily Ever After: Relationship Rules.

In this free e-book, you’ll learn some of the strategies I used to turn my Mr. Good for Nothing into my Mr. Good for Something, including ten Relationship Rules.