How Can I Stop Being Such a Nag?

“I keep bringing up the same problems over and over, and my spouse and children continue in their old ways.   It makes me feel like a nag, and I don’t want to be a nag.”

Nagging is a common occurrence in today’s world, and it doesn’t just take place between spouses.   It happens among family members, roommates, and even friends.   A good number of us have developed a habit of nagging each other, or scolding each other and complaining about a given problem repeatedly.

The authors of Crucial Confrontations assert that the reason we nag is because we’re not addressing the true problem: someone is continually making a commitment, but then isn’t keeping it.   In other words, that person is failing to keep a promise.

We have a choice as to how we can respond to broken promises.  We can do one of three things:

• Confront the pattern,
• Nag the person, OR
• Cope with the problem.

However, our authors remind us that it’s important to remember that when we nag, we are typically addressing “minor infractions.”   These aren’t serious concerns in the great scheme of things.   They aren’t life or death matters.   They’re things like the trash not getting taken out, the dog not getting fed, dirty clothes not making it into the hamper, or the temperature in the den being a little too cold for someone’s liking.

Therefore, Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler suggest that before we react or act in any way, that we evaluate the problem to see if it’s really worth getting upset about.  Just like parents need to choose the battles they have with their children, we need to choose our battles with other adults.

When I was in college, I had a roommate who liked our room fairly cold—at least colder than I usually liked.   At first we had a constant battle with the thermostat, until I decided it wasn’t going to kill me to wear a little extra clothing when she was home.   Essentially what I did was to change my attitude about the situation, and that made all the difference.

• We decide the issue isn’t worth fighting about,
• We let it go, and
• We don’t bring the issue up again.

If we can learn to do this, then we’ll go a long way in learning to deal with problems effectively, not to mention cut down significantly on the amount of nagging we do.