The business of marriage is not an easy one. There are lots of things a man may have to deal with and one of them is a nagging wife. People often wonder why they never get to know a woman nags until they marry her and the simple answer is this – A woman wants to be heard and when she gets married, her options become limited to only…well…you. So what she would have told her male bestie, or her elder sister, or even her mother, she gets to tell only you. Ignore her and she will reignite all those other options and that becomes a bigger problem. She just wants to be heard! Here are some options on how to handle this:
1. Never Forget the Context:
One of the ways for her to get heard is by nagging. This is not the best way, but many women believe it is effective. The idea is, you might just get tired of hearing her repeatedly and finally address the issue. And yes! If there is a sudden change in your wife’s countenance, 99 out of 100 times, you have done something to irritate her. So try to find out what you have done, address it and apologize for it.
2. No Bad Words:
Never approach a nagging wife like a hostile confrontation. This is a terrible idea because chances are, she has a bigger arsenal of words than you and you both will end up exchanging blames without addressing the issues. Always let your wife know that you are willing to address the issues as calmly as possible.
3. Recognize She Thinks Differently:
There are some things that may seem trivial to us that our wives tend to read bigger meanings into. Your wife can nag at you because you didn’t fold your clothes properly or because you forgot the wet towel on the bed. Now, this might be due to a lot of reasons, but many women interpret this as your lack of responsibility. It is left for you to approach her and address these issues and make her understand that you care about your responsibility.
4. Stand Your Ground (But not Always):
Sometimes you may feel so disrespected you just want to escape to your favorite get out spot and have a few drinks. But there are times you need to let her know in a calm way that as her husband, you need to be spoken to with respect and you will be willing to address any issue she wants to discuss calmly.
5. Ignore her (But not Always):
Sometimes, you need to just let her nag and nag and if you are lucky, she would wear herself out or simply get bored at your lack of response. But the mistake many men do is that they never go back to address the issues after they have ignored her at first. When she’s calm, always raise these issues again and make sure they are addressed.
6. Learn the Art of Distraction:
This one is short term. Simply to shut her up immediately. You can use humour, maybe holding a mirror to her face to see how she looks when she nags or simply doing or saying something funny. Compliments work too! Try complimenting her hair, makeup or something she really pays lots of attention to. This would take her aback and break the nagging flow and make her put things into perspective.
7. Show her you Care about her Worries:
No matter how little or mundane her worries are, show her you care about them by setting aside time to talk. Never bury any issue as it will be raised again in future. The moment she stops talking about it, she no longer cares and that’s even more dangerous for the relationship. So take out time to talk about it and assure her you are willing to work on it.
Understanding your wife’s concern is always key. Make her understand you care about her concerns, but not the way she expresses these concerns. It is important to make her understand this. Motivate her to express these concerns in a more mature way and your marriage will be better for it.
Samuel Ejedegba
