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Do Spouses cause more Stress Than Bosses?
Do you feel more comfortable and relaxed at home than at work place? Your instant reply will be in the affirmative. Think again. According to a study carried out in Britain 58 percent of the respondents said their spouse or partner was among those who put them under pressure. The study has claimed that spouses cause more anxiety and stress than the superiors in office. You may not agree with the British survey and sing ‘east or west home is the best’; perhaps you still live in Tennyson’s poetic world that conceptualised division of work on the gender basis.
Men for the field and women for the hearth,
Men for the sword and for needle she,
Men to command and women to obey
To what extent Tennyson’s poetry is relevant in this modern age when women have swarmed into so called men’s territory. Not only women enjoy equal rights with their counterparts, they are at advantage due to their ‘fair sex’ label.
At home who can boast of commanding his wife and she obeying him? This may be true in the early phase of marriage. Every young girl has a fantasy about her prince charming. As marriage matures, she acquires perfect understanding of male psyche. From a lovey-dovey, reticent, coy wife, she turns into a loud, screaming bombshell. Prince charming also transforms into an uncaring, hard-boiled guy. In the struggle of one-up ship, wife takes over the command. In the words of Robert Burns she admonishes her husband:
‘Husband, husband, cease your strife,
No longer idly rave, Sir;
Tho’ I am your wedded wife
Yet I am not your slave, Sir.’
When the situation becomes uncompromising, the feeling of happiness turns to sorrow anytime the husband enters his home. The sweet home turns into a battleground. In due course the wife becomes addict to nagging to the extent that it gives her so much ‘kick’ as drinking beer gives to husband. Exaggeration! You may say so. But you cannot disagree with Bacon, the famous essayist who defined different phases of husband- wife relationship.
‘Wives are young men’s mistress, companion for middle age, and old men’s nurse’. Though, in recent times domineering wives, as many of them are assume the role of ‘Baa’ a little too early.
Symptoms of nagging appear with fault finding, continually complaining, always demanding, pestering and quibbling. Nagging is the result of accumulated unresolved issues; of course issues crop up every day. Spouse leaves the bathroom in chaos, never cleans it, let things slide, throws clothes on the floor, doesn’t follow through the promises to do household chores, ignores request to pick things up, refuses to quit smoking/ drinking, or watches too much television, is on computer a whole lot of time and on, and on..... Any situation can trigger a spell of discord causing unavoidable stress. Repetition of such episodes turns your ‘sweetie’ into a chronic nagger. Once she concludes that you are an incorrigible nut, she will keep trying to use words (generally irritating) to make you change. The more you resist the more words she will use till you are at your wit’s end.
Ego has a very pronounced role in stoking fire of disharmony in the spouses. Uncompromising position taken by them leads to worsening of the situation. There are always going to be wrong things and the things you don’t like, if you can live with them you will save yourself from becoming a victim of nagging. Nagging, in fact is two- way -traffic, it can reach its dead end if verbal traffic is stopped at the either end. You have to realize that there is a process to stop nagging that gives so much stress. Just you have to become aware of things that you say. The seeds of nagging are sown quite early. Here are some useful hints to ‘nip the evil in the bud’:
• Don’t criticize your spouse, never in the presence of others.
• Avoid making your spouse feel stupid.
• Share household chores.
• Respect your spouse’s feelings.
• Stick to the issue at hand.
• Keep your statement brief
• Don’t make ultimatums.
• Avoid using phrases “you always.....” and “you never....”
• Tidy up the place you have used.
• Keep your bathroom in good shape.
• Pick your clothes and put them on hanger
Show your appreciation when your spouse put dishes in dishwasher or pick up a towel turns off the TV to take a walk with you.
The users of these words of wisdom may not be given assurance for cessation of nagging by their spouse, still no harm in trying as we all know ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’.
