Q: How do I get my wife to stop nagging me all the time?
A: The reality is that you cannot force your wife to change. If it is bothering you, you have two options: you can leave her, ending the marriage, or you can learn to live with it.
Living with it might not be all that bad. Let’s face it, the only time her nagging really bothers you is when it touches one of your sore points. She can nag all she wants about camel poop in the Sahara desert. That will not bother you.
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But if she mentions yet again that you forgot to put down the toilet seat, you would think that she had just fired the first shots in the Third World War.
The more personal the issues, the greater the stress levels you feel when you think your wife is nagging.
If you keep your end of the deal, you will be less vulnerable to her nagging. Be the best dad you can to your children, the best husband to your wife, the best entrepreneur running your farm, the best credit manager to your bank and the most responsible citizen Revenue Canada can find in its annual income tax returns. The better you are, the less the nagging will bother you.
You might also try understanding and appreciating your wife a bit more. People nag for many reasons. Some nag because they do not know how to stop when they bring up an issue. They get caught up in their anxieties and go on and on and on, trying to exhaust that nervous energy through personal weaknesses they find in those whom they love.
Shrug it off. Just because she gets caught up in the fear of anxiety, it does not mean that you have to join her there.
Give her 10 minutes to blow off her anxieties and then you are out of there. Back into the Quonset to work on your tractor.
Some people nag to compensate for what they see as a loss of meaning or relevance in their lives. Rather than facing exploring the question of who am I, and strengthening their self worth, they avoid it, compensating for their lack of meaning in their lives by obsessing over the weaknesses of others.
If this is true for your wife, your task is simple. All that you have to do is admit to yourself both your strengths and your weaknesses, and then just listen to her. Feeling good on the farm is good. It is so good that listening to your wife will not in any way distract you from it, and it just might make her feel better too. The more that you listen to her, the greater are the odds that both of you will discover the beauty of the morning sunrise to start the day.
Finally, there are those who nag because they do not know what else to do. These are the intelligent ones, those who can see and recognize bad decisions when they are being made.
They nag and nag and nag to try to change things but that train keeps on coming down the track and no one seems to jump out of the way.
Don’t you feel sorry for people caught up in that? If that is your wife, then at least give her credit for being one who cares. You might try caring along with her, bringing a little more compassion into your struggling marriage.
People can find a lot of reasons to nag each other. My list is not complete. The point is that those who nag need love and support too, but most often they do not get it. They become victims to their cause, avoided to the extent possible by other people because no one likes to be around a nag.
Take up the cause, love your wife despite her nagging and you may find that self worth within yourself that makes life and living all the better.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan. Contact: jandrews@producer.com.
