Nagging

The Fiance and I were talking about finances when I asked him to call the company that handles his debt management plan to see if he could work out a deal where his repayment agreement would not be declared in default if he were to move to my home state after our impending nuptials sans job. It was probably the third request I'd made in as many weeks and The Fiance expressed some resistance before grudgingly agreeing to make the call.

"You know," I said, "if we were married and living together, I would just go ahead and call myself because I know dealing with finances is not your favorite thing to do. But I can't do this for you. You're going to have to make the call on your own."

"Okay! I said I'd call!" The Fiance said in a tone that implied I was nagging him.

We were both irritated at this point so we abruptly ended our phone conversation and I went to bed.

I found the whole exchange disturbing. I laid in bed for a good half-hour staring at the ceiling and imagining myself spending the next 25 years having to constantly prod The Fiance to get him to do things that are higher on my priority list than his. The prospect didn't sit well with me. After all, I want to be a wife, not a mother.

Those disturbing feelings stayed with me until morning and once I got to work, I searched Google for articles on how NOT to become a nagging wife. I didn't find any articles that fit the bill, but I did come across one that really seemed to resonate with me and that was enough.

In How I Became a "Nag", Pamela Kruger talks about how her marriage used to be egalitarian in nature with both parties sharing household responsibilities without much discussion on the matter. If something needed to be done around the house, then one of them did it. End of story.

Once they had children, things started to change. The number of things that now needed to be done increased dramatically.

Kruger writes:

Winging it was no longer an option. One person had to do the mental work of running the household, and since I was working from home, that fell to me. Without debate or even discussion, I became the memory bank for our family, the person in charge of details, big and small.

I'd notice when the car needed an oil change, the dishwasher had to be emptied, the kids needed school supplies, new clothes, hair cuts, or doctors' appointments, the piano teacher had to be paid, birthday gifts had to be bought...and the mind-numbing list goes on and on. As my husband's work became more demanding, he seemed to notice less and less, and I became become more frustrated and resentful. If I complained and pestered him enough, he'd finally get around to doing some of these things, but often I'd just do the chores myself. At least that's how it has seemed to me.

Because I'm the planner and organizer in The Fiance and I's relationship, I can totally see me falling into this trap -- nag, nag, and nag some more, then do it myself. Wash, rinse, repeat.

And this nagging game we play, it seems to have very gender specific roles. More often than not, women are the naggers and men are the naggees. When Kruger poled her friends, they had this to say on why women tend to be nags:

Men drive them to it. "Men don't know how to multitask. They forget everything unless they're reminded," said one friend. "Men want to turn us into these mommies who take care of everything, people we desperately don't want to be," said another.

Her sister also made a valid point:

My sister objects to the word "nag," saying it's an unfair term invented by men to turn the blame on us. "We're called ‘nags' when we ask a man to do something, and he doesn't do it (either because he doesn't feel like it at that moment or he doesn't think it's important). So we're put in the position of having to ask again and again. By calling us nags, it relieves them of the responsibility of doing something they don't want to do. It makes us the bad guy!"

But what is it about the male-female relationship dynamic that causes this nagging scenario to play out over and over again? In the article, the author, quoting Georgetown linguistics professor Deborah Tannen, offers a theory:

"That women have been labeled "nags" may result from the interplay of men's and women's styles, whereby many women are inclined to do what is asked of them and many men are inclined to resist even the slightest hint that anyone, especially a woman, is telling them what to do.....a man who wants to avoid feeling that he is following orders may instinctively wait before doing what she asked, in order to imagine that he is doing it of his own free will. Nagging is the result, because each time she repeats the request, he again puts off fulfilling it."

I suspect that this is at least partly true. But it may not tell the whole story. A women's studies professor friend of the Kruger's offers another opinion:

. . . [the professor] thinks nagging may be prevalent these days not because of gender but because of our demanding, overscheduled lives. "We're stressed out and don't have enough time, and so one person becomes the organizer," she says. "And the other person may simply not care as much about those details, so that's when the nagging happens." Also, she says because there isn't the clear division of labor between couples anymore, that may lead to resentment too, as one person is saddled with more domestic responsibilities.

I have a feeling that the person who is going to end up saddled with more domestic responsibilities is me and I find that bothersome. Not because I'm not well-suited or capable of handling the household, but because doing so somehow, in my mind, equates to me being the mom. And the woman who was essentially raised without a father bristles at the idea of being the one who takes care of everything, because she desires desperately for someone to take care of her. Kruger hits the nail on the head when she writes:

Still, I keep thinking of what my friend said about husbands wanting us to be mothers, and I realize that it may also be true that I am trying to make my husband my father - someone who will take care of me, so I don't have to worry.

Though it helps to have a better understanding of why women and men behave in their relationships the way that they do, I still have no answers on how to stop the vicious nagging cycle. But for now, I'm okay with just the deeper understanding. Hopefully, in time, The Fiance and I will find a better method of resolving these issues.