Is there anything more annoying than when you find yourself turning into a nag in your relationship? When I hear myself nag, it’s nails on chalkboard to my own ears. It’s like I’ve turned into the most irritating 1990s sitcom portrayal of a mother. That’s not who I want to be or how I want to be spending my time. If you’re like me, I think the below will help you. Here’s how to stop being a nag with your boo.
Assess it
First things first, think about the type of things you find yourself nagging your partner over and how you talk about them. Are you asking your boo to do reasonable things? For example, do you want him to make a doctor’s appointment? Or would you like her to not snooze 12 times while you’re still trying to sleep? Those both sound reasonable to me. If you’re asking for a renovation on the basement or to buy you something that’s out of their budget, that feels way less reasonable to me. If your requests are reasonable, you then need to take a look at how you’re asking. Are you making your desires clear and presenting them in a way that’s easier to hear? For example, couching your request in a long to do list might not make it clear what’s important and what’s not. Or whining your wishes, instead of calmly stating them, makes them easy to dismiss. Make sure you’re giving your partner the best chance possible to get what you want done the way you want it.
Talk about it
If you’re sure that your requests are reasonable and you know that you’re doing a good job presenting them, but your honey still isn’t doing what you want and you have to ask repeatedly, you need to talk about it. Explain that asking for the same thing time and time again feels like nagging to you and get into what exactly about being a nag you don’t like. For me, I don’t like feeling like I’m turning into my man’s mother. I want to be his lover and partner! Tell your boo that you want to be able to make a request and trust that they will either do it or talk to you about why they can’t do it. Then, you two can find a workaround that makes sense for both of you. Full on ignoring your request until you ask multiple times isn’t an option.
End it
If you’ve talked about it and your boo stills lets situations fester until you nag, then it’s time to make a choice. You can either decide that nagging isn’t that bad and you’ll do it because it seems to be how your partner needs you to be in this relationship. Or you decide that this isn’t the relationship for you and you get out. If you’ve reasonably presented your point a time or two and nothing changes, then I don’t think anything’s going to change. What to do next is up to you.
Hope that helps you turn down the volume on your nagging and turn up the volume on the romance in your relationship. I know for me, that it’s one or the other. I can’t feel like a nag and appreciate romance!
