My husband and I have been married for just shy of one hundred years. We’re so good at being married at this point I was considering writing a book about it, but who really has the time to read a whole book, or write one?  I’d rather just tell you our little secret and save you thousands of hours of couples’ therapy.

You might want to jot this down. You’re going to need to refer to it quite a bit if you want to make it to just-shy-of-one-hundred-years.

The secret to a happy marriage is: Never do anything that will hurt your spouses’ feelings.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

I know what you’re thinking: If I can’t hurt his feelings, how is he ever going to learn?

Sadly, people tend not to be able to learn anything. You should know that going in. The man/woman you married is the man/woman you will be married to for the next one hundred years. Now is the time to hightail it out of there, otherwise, you have to be nice the entire time.

Of course, there will be times when this seems impossible, and a lot of people ask me: What about when he’s driving?

This is an important question because we spend so much of our time in the car. What you need to do in this situation is not let on that you don’t like him anymore.

Unfortunately, even if you follow my advice perfectly, there will always be times when he/she will do something that will make you feel bad. If you’re both following the rule, it won’t be intentional, but it will happen anyway. He might accidentally grow a long pointy beard, which will frighten you, but you can’t say anything. Or, you might, out of nowhere, give yourself entirely new eyebrows. It happens.

You might also be wondering something like: What if he forgets my anniversary? A lot of women ask me this. Men don’t seem to care about this one, but I always say the same thing: Your relationship is not a history test. And who the hell ever really knows what day it is? For all anyone knows, today could be Tuesday or Saturday, or even Monday. Just let all that stupid crap go, including your birthday and everything else that matters to you. Try to put yourself in his shoes. Imagine what it’s like to have almost no memory at all. He’s probably lost somewhere at this very minute without a wallet, keys, or a recent home address. If you’re really hung up on celebrating a particularly special occasion, buy yourself a card, sign it, and put it in the mail.

 Isn’t this so much better than caring about anything? So, there’s your answer. There’s nothing you can’t get through if both of you follow that one simple rule. Just be nice to each other all the time, and tell me how it went. In a hundred years.