Posted on 01/27/2012 9:55:44 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
It's More Common Than Adultery and Potentially As Toxic, So Why Is It So Hard to Stop Nagging?
Ken Mac Dougall bit into the sandwich his wife had packed him for lunch and noticed something odd—a Post-it note tucked between the ham and the cheese. He pulled it out of his mouth, smoothed the crinkles and read what his wife had written: "Be in aisle 10 of Home Depot tonight at 6 p.m."
Mr. Mac Dougall was renovating the couple's Oak Ridge, N.J., kitchen, and his wife had been urging him to pick out the floor tiles. He felt he had plenty of time to do this task. She felt unheard.
"I thought the note was an ingenious and hysterical way to get his attention," says his wife, Janet Pfeiffer (whose occupation, interestingly enough, is a motivational speaker), recalling the incident which occurred several years ago. Her husband, a technician at a company that modifies vehicles for handicapped drivers, didn't really see it that way. "I don't need a reminder in the middle of my sandwich," he says.
~snip~
Why do we nag? "We have a perception that we won't get what we want from the other person, so we feel we need to keep asking in order to get it," says Scott Wetzler, a psychologist and vice chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. It is a vicious circle: The naggee tires of the badgering and starts to withhold, which makes the nagger nag more.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Ugh. As a husband, I hate hearing about your pumpkin pie problem.
At the end of the article was helpful suggestions to overcome the nagging issues.
Like... Set a timeframe. I wonder if your husband would have been happy if you told him there will be pumpkin pie and it will be Friday night, because I’m doing this, this and this...
Probably not, but at least he would not have gone guessing. Another thought. Why didn’t you buy a store bought pumpkin pie instead of ice cream? I know... he would not have like that either, but too bad for him.
Wish I had more answers.....
I'd say that might more accurately be stated:
2. A woman marries a man thinking he’ll she'll be able to change him. But he doesn’t she can't.
LOL! Perfect. :)
I have taken great pains to teach my children that the only person they can change is themselves by the help of the Holy Spirit. Hopefully, I have done my future son-in-laws a service in this regard. :)
Major Naggee here! My husband nags me to death. So, I'm here to tell you it's not just women.
My husband even nags me because I don't nag.
He thinks I should follow the kids around and nag them until they do their chores. I just don't have that nagging gene. I give the kids a time I want their chores done, and leave them alone. They know they will be punished if it's not done.
is sex as payment illegal.
if you have to “do chores” for mere sex it is time for another woman.
That post was riddled with grammatical errors. I am on painkillers for a torn rotator cuff so if the sentence made sense at all I am grateful. Lol!
I would ask him to do something or suggest something that we might think about for the future and he would just say, "mmhuh". Then he either would not do it or on something that I suggested we think about I would arrive home to find it done. Equally as annoying! Especially since he was so please with himself that I could not puncture his balloon. Which meant I was sometimes stuck with something that I didn't want to happen yet. "We needed to think about getting a new car" and I would arrive home to find he had gone out and bought one which meant that we now had three cars and a car payment.
The not doing things was simple I told him that I would ask him once, remind him twice and then I would either do it myself or have it done. After the first time I did that he started to explain to me why he didn't think the time was right to do something. That was all I wanted.
And I learned to be very careful to describe when I was thinking of doing something and what steps I thought were necessary before it was done. "I think we should buy another car when we have saved up the money and after we have sold the old one."
It worked. We are both much happier.
Women simply talk more than men do. I suspect this is cultural in that women talk about dang near everything under the sun of little importance, for example, the 256 colors in a box of Crayola crayons.
Women often speak without thinking. That is, they are often unrestrained in what they say.
Women often lecture. They tell their husbands “the way” to do things as if it is “the only” way to do something. Often their method is something they learned from their mother or sister or a female friend and rarely is it the bets way or the most efficient way to accomplish the task.
The lectures tend to be interminal and eternal. Rather than tell us what they intend to tell us, then tell us, and then tell us what they told us, women tend to make statement A, then statement B, then statement C and then repeat and repeat and repeat ad infinitum as if hearing the statements over and over and over again make the statements more true.
Most women could benefit from a nice cup of “Shut Up!”
What really suprises me is that whenever I tell my wife that she is naggging (which I do not do very often because I know the result of such a statement), she tell me over and over and over again she is not nagging, what nagging is, how she knows women who nag and she is not one of them (not realizing that not being as bad as some does not make one not a nagger), and that if I want to be nagged she will show me what nagging really is.
It’s no wonder so many men drink...for which they are very likely nagged.
It worked. We are both much happier.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Great. I’m glad for you both. If my wife even hinted that we might need a new car, I’d have done the same as your husband. Woo Hoo - New Cars! Men are like boys with their toys when it comes to cars.
My wife is like you. She knows men are bad at receiving emotional signals. She knows I need to be told there is a problem. Men LIKE fixing problems. But on the other hand, we just need to remember that sometimes when the wife is going on about her day, that we need to just shut up and listen and do not try and “fix” her problem.
Funny how well relationships can work if they are based on spiritual principles and we keep God in the middle. :-)
Does Mrs. Greyhound nag sometimes? Yes. Am I an aloof jerk that deserves it sometimes? Absolutely.
Fortunately it is not a central theme of our marriage. It is only on the periphery. Her nagging comes in cycles (hmmm, wonder what that’s about).
Hope all is well with you.
Women don't do that, when the tank is empty, it is empty. That is the way they are made.
You don't have to do chores for sex but if you make sure your wife doesn't end the day exhausted you will get more sex.
That can be done by either helping her out or gently suggesting she stop what she is doing and come to bed. And then don't give her grief the next day because she didn't do some chore the night before. That is a sure fire way to make sure she ends the day exhausted.
Version 1.0 wifee was a vulgar nagger unless we had company then she played the most loving wife ever. Hence, I was the evil one. She was so bad I think she wanted me to cold cock-a-doodle her but I didn’t. I held on almost a decade then surrendered and waved divorce papers. Ended the tragedy just before alimony would have zapped me. Child support and lack of non custodial visitation i.e., less than uncle gets, nearly sunk my dugout. Version 2.0 is wonderful...
Not sure how you managed to turn my good natured comment into a comment about prostitution but I will attempt to answer.
First of all, as a married woman I would NEVER defraud my husband by withholding sex.
Second, chores for sex is not what I meant at all. It IS NOT ‘payment’ for doing chores. He doesn’t do the chores for sex, she doesn’t give sex because of the chores being done.
It is about the atmosphere of the home. A woman feels loved and appreciated when her husband willingly helps around the house. When a woman feels loved and appreciated ..well.. things happen.
On the practical side, helping with chores also frees up more time and energy for the woman to expend on other ventures. :)
It is the same concept as Dr. Laura described. When a man is getting plenty of sex, he feels loved and appreciated and willingly helps the woman. The woman isn’t giving lots of sex to get the man to cooperate.
I would recommend handing this guy a John Gottman book and/or signing him up for a seminar with John Gottman. My husband and I have attended two of this seminars and found them to be extremely useful in altering behavioral dynamics that can really bring a huge distance between couples.
He talks about the four houseman that destroy a relationship, but also the positive behaviors and habits that can nurture the relationship.
Next time ole' ungateful, bitch, and whine starts up plop one of those tickets to a Gottman seminar in his lap and say, "you'' thank me late." With a smile of course :-). By the way. That was very nice of you to buy him the rocky road. Clearly he (like many, myself included, has some deeper stuff going on that has nothing to do with your lovely self.)
oops. Meant to write, “You’ll thank me later.”
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