The Mystery of Nagging, Solved!

Hello, all you married men out there. As a stay-at-home dad, I wanted to clue you in to something. Why am I subjected to nagging? Curious? Read on, my friend.

Formerly in my professionally-oriented life, I got nagged occasionally, though not very much – my wife is a sweetie and quite adaptable. However, when I came home to stay with our two girls for a while, I realized I’m not a flexible as she is. And I (the guy) began to nag my wife. Seriously. I did. It’s not something I’m proud of, but in the process I have uncovered the secret mysteries surrounding “nagology.”

See, when you’re stay-at-home wife tells you something and you say, “Okay, I’ll get to it.” She wants to believe that you will. But here’s the rub: when you leave for work for 8+ hours a day, never to think about picking up your clothes or fixing that door handle, your wife continually confronts those issues at least ten times a day. If you say, “I’ll fix the door soon,” she is left to think about it every time she opens the door (which will be 10 times a day at least). Better yet, if it’s a danger to your children who she has to keep from killing themselves by accident everyday, she’s gonna think about it more.

So, when you come home and casually glance over at your clothes pile in the corner and think, oh yeah, I need to get those up and keep walking to the fridge, your wife has already past by those clothes a hundred times that week and forcefully resisted the urge to pick them up for you. Why? Because you said you’d do it. Chances are good, if it’s a larger job, you’ll say that you’ll get to it on the weekend. That means she has personally wrestled with her own patience to allow you the chance to help out around the home many, many times over those five workdays. And if it slips your mind over the weekend and you say, “Oh yeah – I’m sorry. I said I was gonna fix that. Oh well, I’ll get to it next weekend,” you have absolutely no idea of the dilemma that you place her in. Do I do it myself? No, he said he’d do it. But what if he forgets again? I can’t take it anymore! I’ll do it myself!

Think about it this way. What if you hear a mildly annoying song on the radio a hundred times to your friend’s one listen. At five hundred listens for you, he’s still gonna want to turn up the volume when he hears it. However, you’ll be ready to jump out of a moving car just to get away from it. Get the point?

Buddy, your inaction has just compounded the irritation of that incident a thousand times along with the guilt she now feels for “teaching” you that it’s okay not to help out. Nagging is (by observation in my personal domestic laboratory ) your wife’s attempt to relieve that tension a little at a time rather than exploding when you walk in the door.  She needs to feel like you’ve heard her. And above all, she needs your help. How does she know that you have heard her? You actually make the issue in question a priority for you. Don’t tell her you’ll get to it, do it right then if you can. It’ll only take a minute. So, pick up your junk before you get your own feature on that show Snapped!