There isn’t a married man alive who doesn’t claim to be nagged by his wife. Whether or not she is a pro at the fine art of nagging, men seem to inherently believe that once they get married, they will eventually be subject to it. And they will complain about it loudly to anyone who might listen. With all this nagging going on, it’s easy to wonder whether it’s really happening the way men think. Perhaps, and probably, men have just begun to feel about wives and nagging the way peanut butter feels about jelly — definitely good separately, but more common together.
Is Nagging Really Happening?
This isn’t exactly fair. First off, nagging is defined by the dictionary as “marked by, causing, or experiencing physical pain.” I would venture to say that few women nag to the point of pain, and that most men can tune a woman out as easily as they leave the toilet seat up. This “tuning out” may be the first indicator of what nagging is really about. Women, and wives in particular, are often forced to repeat themselves because men are evasive, silent, and happily able to ignore conversations unless they are of personal interest. You can sit in a room with your husband, make plans for a great family weekend, and although they will nod in agreement, come Friday, they will act as if they never heard of the plans before. But if you’re talking about NASCAR, a baseball game, or the latest edition of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, their ears perk up like puppies at dinnertime.
Secondly, to a man, nagging is saying anything more than once. Unfortunately, there are few things that a man can be told once that he actually remembers. This of course excludes anything that strokes his male ego. As a wife is forced to repeat herself, she suddenly brings on what men think is a nag fest. I believe the term and the insinuation have much more to do with male camaraderie than real habits of their female counterparts.
It’s important to consider that men are curious creatures. More often than not, if they are asked or told to do something, they will lose all urge to do it. They could be on their way outside, clearly intending to cut the grass, and as soon as wifey-poo suggests they cut the back lawn as well, they will park themselves back on the couch. Again, when the dear wife wants to know if honey isn’t feeling well or if everything is okay, they (meaning husbands) begin to wrongfully accuse her of nagging. Some may even go so far as to accuse their wife of trying to plan their day or tell them what to do like they are a child. Hmmm! Very curious behavior. The bottom line is (and all wives know this) that he really wanted to play armchair quarterback, munching on chips with a cold beer in hand. Now he has a passive-aggressive approach to feeling righteous about being lazy and can pretend to be a victim of nagging as well.
Another thing to consider is that wives are wired to think of 50 things at once. With all this thinking going on and to-do lists piling up in their heads, they have to speak them out loud to everyone who will listen in order to keep them all straight and get anything in the home (or otherwise) accomplished. Okay, admittedly it may be a bit bossy, but calling it nagging is just a fallacy. Nagging, in and of itself, is an organizational tool that gets the laundry done, the shopping finished, the dishes washed, the kids bathed, dinner cooked, closets organized, and the house cleaned. Nagging is also responsible for making room for all that sex that men think they are entitled to for doing absolutely little to help. It is true that nagging is often a form of resentment as well. It is frustrating that a wife can take care of the home, children, and hold down a job with constant distractions, while a man can only do one of those things at a time. So, yes, some women resort to a bit of nagging to invoke a form of silent punishment. Usually, it works. When a husband has had enough or heard the same request so many times, he will normally cave in to the pressure in order to escape the dreaded (and so-called) harassment of his nagging wife. Essentially, it’s a win-win for the wife!
Staying real for a minute, I believe that although wives are accused of nagging more, men actually do it more. Men seem to think that because they are men, their constant and silent criticism of what isn’t working doesn’t count as nagging. But trust me, it does. This includes the silent kind of disapproval they show when they can’t find socks. It seems to me that if most men had to get done in a day what their wives do, they would be spilling over with things to nag about. It has just become commonplace in society to label the wife with the nagging. Realistically, this accusation simply serves husbands to pout. Anything they don’t want to do or hear can be ignored because they plead their “nagging victim” status. This pouting is far worse than nagging because not only is it dishonest, but it’s also 100% immature and counterproductive.
So, to all the ‘nagging’ wives in this world, I say, keep on keeping on. Things get done mostly because of us, and we should never have to feel bad about speaking our minds. The only way to be completely nag-proof would be to say nothing at all, unless it’s something our husbands actually wanted to hear. That’s just unrealistic and not much fun. Men need to suck it up a bit and realize that if they paid attention the first time, spent time pulling their weight, and pampered their wives just a bit more, they could live a nag-free life. This would be optimal — however, it would undoubtedly leave them with very little to talk or complain about with the guys.
One Response
Clearly written by a woman