My husband and I recently saw the movie “Gone Girl.” Part of the movie’s message focused on some common issues in marriages that can drive a husband and wife apart.
The movie begins by telling the story of how the couple fell in love. From the wife’s point of view, everything was bliss for the first couple of years. Then there was a turning point in their marriage when she and her husband lost their jobs, her trust fund was drained and her husband moved them across the country away from her hometown without asking her. Due to the job loss, her husband frequently played video games, leaving Chinese takeout on the coffee table and was spending their money too frivolously.
She began to see her husband as lazy and uninterested in her needs. She began to resent him for spending too much of their money and moving her away from home. Over time, she began to nag her husband while becoming disappointed in him as a man.
And he noticed. He was afraid to come home at night because she made him feel like a big disappointment.
He’s just not the same man I married, she tells us in the movie. This is not what I agreed to.
I bet so many women have that same thought within even the first year of marriage.
I have noticed in many of my friends’ marriages one spouse is typically a “Type A” personality. Usually, that is the woman. And “Type A’s” tend to nag when things don’t get done when they want them done. You see, we Type A personalities have checklists in our head. We have priorities that must be done to keep us satisfied. We also seem to think that there is a certain way and certain timing in which things need to be done.
I never thought of myself as a nag or a woman who would ever nag my husband before I got married. But sometime within the first year of marriage, my husband (who is not afraid to speak his mind) did not have a problem telling me when I was nagging him. And he did not like it one bit.
At first, I was appalled at his accusations. “Nag” is such a strong word. I envisioned an annoying, cranky older woman ordering her husband around. That was not me!
However, the more he pointed out when I was nagging him, the more I truly wanted to understand my actions and change them. If there is anything I can do to help my marriage, then I was willing to put forth my best efforts.
Slowly, I realized my requests were demanding, impatient and selfish. Although I may have been asking him to take out the trash in a nice tone, I expected him to take the trash out now, and I didn’t stop asking or reminding him until he did it.
“Babe, will you take the trash out?”
“Sure.”
Ten minutes go by.
Starting to get impatient. “Aren’t you going to take the trash out?”
“I said I would.”
“Well, when?”
Sound familiar? Oh, he heard my request to take the trash out and he agreed to it. He just wasn’t going to succumb to my timing.
As a wife, I must not be a mother to my husband. I must trust him to be responsible and do what he says he will do. I did vow to love and respect him, ’til death do us part.
Proverbs 21:19 says that it is better to live in a desert, than with a quarrelsome and nagging wife.
Men tend to want to curl up in a shell or avoid their spouse when they feel they are constantly nagged or a disappointment. They need to feel appreciated and respected for who they are as a man and the things they do right.
It can be easy to confuse requests with pestering demands. One day, my man kindly told me it wasn’t my requests to take out the trash or clean up his socks that made me sound like a nag, it was the way I approached him. I demanded and expected as if he were my child. I was not showing him respect by asking him and acknowledging that his time and what he might be doing are valuable as well.
“Gone Girl” reminded me of how easy it can be to let myself become disappointed in my spouse because he is not living up to my selfish expectations. But I have realized that many of my expectations going into marriage were not realistic.
In the movie, instead of nagging her husband for everything he did wrong and pointing out all the ways he was acting like a lazy loser or a failure in her eyes, she could have strengthened her marriage by looking for ways to encourage and build up her husband.
Men do not respond well to nagging. They shut down. Nagging does not motivate them– at least, that’s what my husband Isaac says.
When I feel the urge to nag Isaac or get upset with him, I try to stop and think about what I am about to say to him. I now try to approach him with a calm voice, asking him to take out the trash when he has a minute. If I give him realistic timing (not my timing of “now”) and asking nicely just once, he is usually very happy to help.
He is a grown man, and he knows he must help out around the house. But he also knows that chores will not always be done within my timeframe.
I have learned to thank my husband on a daily basis for even the littlest things he does to help out. A woman’s grateful heart motivates a man. And men love to come home to a woman who appreciates and respects them.
PhotoCopyright: nicoletaionescu / 123RF Stock Photo
FEATURED CONTRIBUTOR:
Rachel Bohanan is a newlywed living in Oklahoma City with her husband and six-pound morkie dog. Rachel is passionate about marriage and desires to help others have a great marriage with her. She loves putting words together to share her heart in a way that inspires others to be more like Jesus. While writing is her first love, Rachel works in communications for an oil and gas company and also just started an at-home invitation design business, Rachel Kathryn Designs.
