I AM A NAG. That’s not easy to admit. It’s not easy to listen to either, I’m told, the nagging, but in an effort to mend my carping ways, I am addressing it here. It’s cheaper than therapy.
I am told my nagging has worsened since having babies. My boyfriend, naively, seems to have thought it couldn’t get any worse. That was before he spent half an hour listening to a lecture on the correct way to hold a beaker so that the milk goes into a mouth, as opposed to on the floor. Highly truncated version of this lecture: “Not upside down, you complete and utter eejit” – except I used a far less friendly word than eejit, and in front of the children too. For shame.
I looked it up for clarity because one woman’s nagging could be another’s gentle cajoling:
Nagginga. (nag'ging) Fault-finding; catty; hairsplitting; relentless; persistently annoying; as, a nagging toothache.
It would be comical if it wasn’t so relationship crushing, this tendency to pick holes in every single thing he does.
I don’t even know how it happened. Well, actually, I lie. I do, which makes the whole thing even more depressing.
You see, now that I’m unable to spend my life painting my toenails and watching my Flight of the Conchords box set because I have approximately seven million more things to do, the control freak side of me appears to have taken over to a point where, the other day, I tried to tell my boyfriend the most efficient way to eat his porridge. (Email me if you want to know what it is. Wait, don’t. You’ll only encourage the control freakery and it needs to be stopped, not given more oxygen.)
I’m a nag. From the moment I open my mouth in the morning – “No, don’t pick up that one, the other one is crying, for god’s sake, you always do that” – to last thing at night – “You didn’t charge your phone, you always forget and then I can’t ring you, for god’s sake.”
Oh. That’s interesting. I’ve just realised why he doesn’t charge his phone. If I lived with me, I’d let the battery die, too. You can’t fault his survival tactics.
It’s never-ending. “You promised you would do this thing . . . why do you never do that thing . . . you always say the wrong thing.” The lingo of the professional nag is played on a loop, a litany of commands and criticisms barked from my perch high up in the tree of infinite and unchanging absolute rightness. It’s unattractive, and oh-so-dull. And, while this is of minimal comfort, I know I’m not alone.
At a dinner party the other night, I confessed my nagging ways to another woman. I confided that I was trying to give up but was finding it difficult. She understood. We talked about the magical people out there who are what’s known as “surrendered wives”. These people bite their lips so much they have permanent mouth ulcers. Us nags never bite our lips. It’s against our religion. “Why should we,” asked my companion, “when we know we are in the right?” I know what she means, but when I start boring myself with constant whining, action needs to be taken.
I did a swift analysis of the nagging. The myth: I nag because I think unless everything is done my way, the architecture of our world will collapse. The truth: No one will die if the debris from a sandwich- making episode isn’t cleared away immediately. The myth: I nag because I think it will make my boyfriend a better father. The truth: It makes him doubt his already excellent fatherly instincts and defer to me about every little thing at which point I nag him about not taking the initiative. The myth: I nag because, if I don’t nag, the trains won’t run on time and yes I actually use that phrase which might make you understand that things have reached a critical point. The truth: Trains ran on time when Mussolini was in charge. I am not Mussolini. Not yet. The myth: I nag because I am frustrated with the fact he hasn’t hung those paintings. The truth: I nag because I am frustrated with myself. And anyway, if I want the paintings hung so much, why don’t I do it myself?
A couple of other things gave me pause. The first was a message in my Skype inbox: “European and American women too arrogant for you? Are you looking for a sweet lady that will be caring and understanding? Here you can find a Russian lady that will love you with all her heart . . . fine women of any age for every taste.’’
The second, slightly more dramatic thing was the news report about a guy in Texas who did his wife in because he got fed up of her nagging.
“He isn’t your employee, you know, or your child,” a friend pointed out. And if I spoke to the people at work the way I sometimes speak to my boyfriend, I could expect a pretty awkward call from HR. All I know is if I don’t reduce my nagging by – “at least 50 per cent” according to the henpecked one – I could find myself traded in for a less shrewish Siberian model. Wish me luck. roisin@irishtimes.com
This weekend Róisín will be attending an event called RAW at the O2 in Dublin featuring an Irish wrestler from Cabra in Dublin called ‘Sheamus’. She may go completely mad and wave one of those giant foam hands in the air like she just doesn’t care.