Stop nagging your man. Really. The Wall Street Journal recently claimed that nagging — which the WSJ defines as "the interaction in which one person repeatedly makes a request, the other person repeatedly ignores it and both become increasingly annoyed" — is the biggest marriage killer and likely to lead to divorce. Yikes!
Shana cringed whenever I chewed on a pen –-which was pretty much every time I had one nearby. I told her that I heard her, was trying my best to remember not to do it around her, and that it wasn’t personal. After the 23rd time of being yelled at –yelled at—while I was concentrating on a crossword, I told her I felt nagged. She replied, "I nag because I love." I nag because I love is one of those phrases thoughtlessly tossed out of convenience to excuse bad behavior, but if you put any thought into, you’d realize doesn’t hold up. Think "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" or "The surge is working."
One woman describes her partner's downward spiral of negativity. What started out as normal everyday complaining became a routine of self-destruction that eventually the ended the relationship. Negativity and neediness can cloud a good relationship and turn all that whining and worrying into a self fulfilling prophecy: "As we got more settled, the negativity grew. It became complicated, involving me and her belief that I could not possibly love her. But I did, I knew I did, and I told her so, but it never seemed to make any long-term difference. The instances began piling on top of each other until they became a frustrating routine."
A few days ago, I was asking my 17 year old son a series of have-you-gotten-blank-and-blank-done-college-application questions. To which he replied with a series of exasperated yeahs until he reached his manly limit, I guess, and said, “Mom, would you just stop nagging me?” I think I heard my husband murmur, “Uh-oh.” I started to say, “WHAT?!!?” when he interrupted to quickly say, “I just mean, mom, that I have it under control! You don’t need to worry about it. Really….it’s all good.” Even better, I’m sure, after a little speech about motherhood, worrying, and a reminder of how to speak to his mom.
I know there's something creepy and entirely unsexy about playing a maternal role with the man you love. I've often wondered if the mothering instinct is just part of being a woman in love‚ or if it's an annoying urge that we must ignore if we want to keep romance alive and our dignity intact.
Nagging won't help; but a partner's unhealthy habit hurts more than his or her life expectancy. Taking on too much responsibility for a partner's bad habit is a classic sign of codependency‚ and an unhealthy dynamic in which one person becomes too wrapped up in the other. As she learns to cope with her husband's smoking; Meagan Francis also explores where his problem ends and hers begins. What does she find? "While it's OK to worry about a partner when they're doing unhealthy things, detaching from their habits—while keeping the lines of communication open—is key. Of course, there are some non-negotiables. Illegal drug use, heavy drinking, addictive gambling, and anything severely self-destructive may warrant a "quit or else" attitude. But for those not dealing with extreme cases, ultimatums aren't the answer, and neither is an expectation that your partner will comply with your wishes. Instead, use your mutual respect to reach a compromise."
