More often than not, many wives and mothers have a lack of support and help from their husbands.
It’s a tale old as a time, but a mom and educator named Laura Danger admitted that there’s an actual name for this universal experience that women face and provided encouragement and advice for any woman who may find themselves stuck in that loop.
“The nag paradox is a setup where one person is delegating, managing, decision making, and standard setting. Then somebody else is the support partner,” Danger remarked, defining the common dynamic between wives and their husbands. “They are being told what to do, directed, and managed around the house. This is a common setup.”
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Danger explained that this was the dynamic in her own relationship and household.
Most of the time, women have to instruct their husbands of their responsibilities and “let them know” how they can show up for their spouse instead of just taking the initiative. However, Danger admitted that it’s always a trap.
Whenever one person is doing the decision-making in the household and asking for help, that’s a bid for connection. Danger pointed out that rejecting or missing one of those bids is not good.
According to a study from the Pew Research Centeralmost half of women in opposite-sex marriages earn as much as or more than their husbands. However, even women who out-earn their male spouses undertake more unpaid labor, such as childcare and housework.
Women still spend more time on unpaid chores and caregiving, while their spouses are freed up to spend more time on leisure and paid work.
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“If you’re feeling like you’re being rejected repeatedly, you are going to stop asking. There’s gonna be emotional distance, it’s gonna go poorly in your relationship,” Danger continued, adding that there’s something relationship experts Dr. John and Dr. Julie Gottman have coined called the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
“These are like four behaviors; if they’re present in your relationship, it predicts an ending to it. Two of those things are criticism and defensiveness, and they are baked into the nag paradox,” she added.
She pointed out that in a nag paradox, one person directs, delegates, tells their spouse what to do, and repeatedly gives feedback if something doesn’t get done at all or correctly, while the other person constantly receives criticism about what they should be doing.
“If you’re constantly on the receiving end of feedback or even just adjustments of things you need to do better, it feels bad, and you might start to feel like you as a person, your character, your quality as an individual is being undermined. You get protective. You defend yourself.”
Danger acknowledged that this setup isn’t good for either individual in a marriage because, after a while, you don’t want to be vulnerable with each other for fear of these criticisms and defensiveness coming out.
It’s why married couples need to communicate and work through the unequal division of labor, childcare, and overall household responsibilities if that’s what’s happening.
Women shouldn’t be holding their tongue for fear of their husbands’ responses, and husbands should be open and willing to have these conversations and actually change without being forced to.
Domestic labor is such an important aspect of any marriage because, at the drop of a hat, it can be the catalyst for relationships and marriages to end.
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Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.
