Asking versus nagging

Okay, let me just start this with one, big ole disclaimer: every relationship has its own quirks, its own methods of getting along, relating, and its own versions of repair attempts that can patch up an argument or divide it in a given topic. Each relationship has its own distinct character, made up of two individual people working to hard to meld entirely individual worlds into one world. Each one is unique.

Also, I detest, loathe, hate the word "nag."

I just read an article on the Slate Magazine website that was some female author's attempt to explain the concept of nagging by asserting her belief that in order for nagging to stop, one must understand the politics of it. (You can see it here.)

Ha! As IF... it were that simple.

It sounded a lot more like an attempt to sound intelligent within a wordy ramble of pop psychology than it did just a point of view, and I had an immensely difficult time trying to make myself read through it. Not just because it was sexist--sexist from a woman's point of view!--and rambling in its own way, but because even the structure made it hard to follow.

It was like watching someone take a giant leap back towards my junior high days, watching in horror as someone slid awkwardly into my old, baggy jeans and multi-colored t-shirts covered in bandaids and condoms. Or something.

Seriously, not a good look for a gangly Mexiwegian from Wyoming.

What was some woman doing rummaging through my old garbage? No, I meant my old writings.

I was pretty disappointed that such an inferior piece of crap was allowed on the Slate website AND that it did more harm than good to publish an already confused and horrible subject.

I remember spending my babysitting money on this stuff.

For the epic centuries that have made up my life and the life of other women, the word "nag" has been one of the most negative aspects of any relationship. For me, it is part of my vocabulary of Things To Be Aware Of in an overall stash of emotional intelligence that I carry around with me like Santa and his pack. Except a little dingier and a little crazier, kinda like that crazy aunt that brings you stuff you can't use right away. Or at all.

(I don't know how many of us have an aunt like that. I don't.)

It is a word that signals red. I've known, if by no other form than my dad's comments referencing my mom's behaviors while I was growing up, that it is meant to be supremely negative.

But I have other sources of knowing this, as well. It was part of the reason when, at the tender, dumbass age of 18, living with the father of my oldest daughter exploded in my face within the first year. Not only was I ticking time bomb of emotions and hormones, but based on the sordid and unrealistic belief that I would never nag, it came as a nasty and undeniable shock when he uttered those contemptible words, "quit being such a nag." Well! I never! Spitter, spatter...

Regardless of where it came from (foolish expectations? being unrealistic? not knowing myself well enough or not being a whole person?) it is a trigger word. Nag. It just conjures up evil pictures of hovering, bickering women, pointing their fingers over and over in the dark whilst their eyebrows arch high up in a steep frown and their nostrils flare. *Shudder!*

I don't want to be accused of this:

Or this.

Well, wouldja take-a-look-a-tha'.

And especially not this!

Why? Because even for a woman of the slightest intelligence, it is a written-off, flat-out insult. Even if I'm the only girl in the world that gets hotly ruffled by the mere mention of the word, my intention, like many women I know, is never to be that person to the man I love! Aw!

BUHHH-t...

I have done it. And it's excruciatingly embarrassing because I know better. Sometimes it's like, oh I don't know... like there are hormones that override reasonable behavior or something. But I didn't want to be wrapped up in being that way, I wanted to figure it out.

So I read Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus in the late 90s; Boundaries In Marriage in the last few years, and discussed personalities at length with my psychologist mother-in-law, on top of having my own "interesting" communication through the ages. The best book I have ever read so far is 7 Principles To Making Your Marriage Last, by John Gottman.

This guy actually developed a Love Lab and observed couples and wrote down all of his findings. It's actually got some really interesting stuff about committed relationships that you can really sink your teeth into without putting an alien label on your spouse. He's the guy that can allegedly predict divorce within 3 minutes of a couple's argument, but whatevs. He's a man with the credits and has done some serious empirical research in this field.


He also covers nagging.

It's true.

After all of the psychological and spiritual and knowledgeable advances we as a human race have made, the work he's done has comprised a major step in the right direction, from a scientific point.

It all makes sense in the Law of Divine Love, too.

Or, the law that governs us all whether we choose to accept it or not.

Go figure.

It boils down to being aware of yourself and how you come across, how important that is to you, and the fact that it should be important to you. The entire area of nagging, specifically, has to do with being emotionally intelligent. Ya have to pay attention when you're talking to your partner and you really have to decide if what you're about to bring up is an absolute priority or a let-go-able offense.

And you have to be willing to remember what brought you together in the first place and work to keep that "what's important to him/what's important to her" dynamic going. After all, real love is an action word. The swooning stage wears off, life/parenting gets in the way, and it's a hard hit to the relationship. A person has to shut that off from time to time, but the most important thing is to keep the conversation about it (and other such an evolutions) between any two people on-going.

Heavy

Okay. I that's it. I believe in God. Okay? I shy away from this overt statement for fear of being perceived as a bumple-thumping scripture monger, especially on the ground that I believe in Him very strongly, believe in miracles, believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and our indescribably generous savior, and that his mother was (is) holy and immaculate. With EVERY fiber of my being. But you know what? Most times, as in my whole inner core with or without words, testimony, and the like, I can truly say I don't care how I might be perceived. It just such a personal thing to be modest about HOW MUCH I believe in Him because the relationship I have with Him feels private and protected. It's not FOR anyone else and it is even less for show or for demonstration via the pulpit. It is SO incredibly personal, it's hard to fathom. Hard to explain. It's so incredibly personal to share these things and show belief such as in capitalizing the "h" when using what I think is a holy pronoun or reciting His presence in my life when the world is FULL--and I know it is full--of cynics, but how on earth did I get from there to here; and how is that we have moved so far away from God as a people and a race?

My own journey is not open for public spectacle, and I say this, yet I see no wisdom in keeping it all to myself. I see the wisdom in sharing what I've been through so as to be a comfort to others, offer them words of resolve, of understanding, of empathy, and most of all love. But I don't feel like spattering it all over everything because people get sick of that, too, and it that's not helpful in the least.

So then, what of this compounded need to get this out? Well, for starters, I've been "quiet" and "observant" for far too long. In trying to tip toe around others' sensitivities and not be too bible-thumpey (which I could never be because I don't know enough scripture TO quote and have not read the bible cover to cover), I've almost become complacent for a red-blooded, impassioned hot-head like myself. It's just not me. (Besides the fact that I don't want to be judged by God as having fallen asleep at the wheel.)

Especially when it comes to the point of standing up for someone or something. If there is one thing in this life I loathe, or at least have heavy, temperamental disdain for, is idle hands, lukewarm attitudes, standing idly by in the face of injustice or just plain spinelessness. And for me to make all these concessions about what I will say or not say in public or to others to avoid embarrassment (embarrassment of possibly contradicting myself more than in people's opinions) just makes me a candidate for hypocracy. The whole thing is kind of (quite a bit of) crazy. I mean, there IS ... balance to be had. I'm not going to go screaming about Mohammed at the top of Sipple Hill tomorrow because there's just no grace in that, nor am I the type to stand on any soap box, but I think if I said something here, where I air just about every other thought I have, then it might complete the circle of rambling.

So standing up for what? Standing up for what I believe. Standing up for the qualities and lessons and morals Jesus taught us to live by on earth. I am Catholic, but I don't buy into everything the Catholic church sells. I also try very hard to put what is doled out into perspective. I believe that there are enormous possibilities that we can't even imagine as to what really transpired before, during, and after the Bible was written, but I don't believe that the stories in the Bible were "just" stories. I believe EVERYTHING happens for a reason, especially when we can't understand it; and even if that much is by human error, it is, has been, or was allowed to transpire by God himself because he gives us free will. I believe that we make up or shun the things that are difficult to believe because it's easier to laugh than to try to believe in something that has no concrete, human-registered value. I believe that God DID send his most precious son down here to earth, that his name was Jesus, that he was born in ways too miraculous to understand, to live life just like us--or the "us" of the times, those times, back then, that culture--and suffer a most excruciating death so that we could never say to Him "you don't understand". I believe that he did come back to life, did raise up, did go to Heaven, and now lives among us as an invisible soldier, friend, confidante, brother, and intercessor who is trying to get us all up to heaven; and as someone who TOTALLY understands.

I believe Jesus wants us to live through him and him through us (you know, like when you tell a friend "I'll live vicariously through you"), both in the heavenly and afterlife sense, but also in the sense of now; but so that we could have a piece of Heaven because he suffered the ultimate price, he suffered more than we could ever know, more than we could ever endure. He can tell us in our hearts and in those moments of quiet peace that He knows and understands our woes and burdens and triumphs and reliefs; and that will make us want to listen. Share our pain, our joy, our sorrows, or delights. I believe that His love is so thorough and so pure that we cannot possibly fathom its endurance. I believe science and religion are intrinsically connected, even though they cycle around each other in this duel for the title of dominant force because science is the discovery and explanation of miracles, given to humanity as gift; and religion (or spirituality) is the cause to believe. We need desperately to understand that cockiness on either side of the debate is still cockiness and it's getting us nowhere. In that instance, we are still like kids, locking horns on the playground because one thinks they're better than the other. A reponsible person might say, "it's not LIKE that" to them after pulling them apart and why? Because adults generally understand that in the bigger picture, there is give and take, compromise, resolution and balance. But right now, no one is saying anything. And for those that are, there tends to be a top-heavy imbalance of self-righteous posers blabbing at the top of the stack.

Maybe I am one of them, but I hope not. The point is there is a part of me telling me I'm not saying enough. It's not a guilty feeling, it's a half-impatient feeling, as though I were asking myself 'what's taking you so long?' I also fight the feelings I have of others when I read or hear the overused "god" word in their vocabulary. The sad reality is that the "G" word has been overused and used in a near-abusive way, to the point that it's almost gimick or trendy, which is awful. We need to take a moment and shed all the crap, the toys, the gadgets, the electronics, the words, the talking and purge the air, purge our personal environments, just for a second and breathe the simplicity.