My wife sent me this link today from the Wall Street Journal. She didn’t nag me to read it, or nag me to post it. 🙂
The value I see in it:
- It recognises the destructiveness of nagging.
- It gives some constructive ideas to help break the cycle, if this has become a problem in your marriage.
An excerpt (emphasis mine):
•Calm down—both of you. Recognize the pattern you are in and talk about how to address it as a team. You will both need to change your behavior, and ground rules can help.
•Look at it from the other person’s perspective. ‘Honey, when you ignore me I feel that you don’t love me.’ ‘I feel that you don’t appreciate what I am already doing when you nag me.’
Nagging is sinful behaviour. I talked about it in my post for wives on I Peter 3:1-6, and in the following post for husbands about the dangers of husbands tempting their wives in this. If there is nagging in your marriage, you are part of the problem and are responsible to help fix it.
This article from the WSJ is not written from a Biblical perspective, and it does not recognise the proper role of authority in a marriage. But the author has recognised the destructive nature of nagging, and provides some useful ways to change the pattern. I commend it to you.
Mind Renewers 
Sorry, Jon…. but the note in the sandwich was just hysterical… but I do have an over-active sense of humor! However, the point is well taken that we have to be careful about the way that we talk to and interact with our spouse. Feeling like you are being ignored is pretty hard to take, and does not make the person being ignored feel very good.
Good word, Jon.
Sincerely,
Larry
🙂 I thought it was pretty funny, too. But context is everything — if it came in a nagging relationship, it could be pretty bad.