A friend posted this article on that thing that rhymes with Bacefook, and it really got to me. The reason is that for every one "Oh, was I nagging my husband?" remark from a woman, there are millions of guys living through this everyday. That article describes my mother-in-law to a "T". The answer is not women need to stop nagging. Men need to learn to stand their ground and vocally not put up with it.

It's something very near and dear to my heart that has caused me a lot of grief. Raised to be a nice guy, I found myself at 40 years old, married, two kids, living the dream... and getting nagged. Now, my wife isn't as bad as her mother, but I get an earful now and then. I'd be watching the kids and dread her walking in the door. "What about this? What about that? I told you about this, why did you forget about that? You don't listen." when the reality is that I worked all day, came home so she could do something, watched the kids, bathed them and put them to bed. It hurt. I would try to honestly talk to her about it and how it made me feel, and I would immediately get labelled as too sensitive. It was then that I realized that the rabbit hole of being the sensitive nice guy had no bottom. I fell into the role that was created for me by society of the submissive "yes dear" husband. We let it happen.

I've since realized for the first time in my life that the qualities that I thought were negative for a husband... indifference, strength, attitude... things like that... were actually healthy parts of being the male in a male-female pairing. I hit the gym three times a week, I lost some weight, and I'm doing my best to frame interactions in terms of what I want too. And I'm refusing to let slights or nags go unanswered. It seems that everything in our relationship is better as a result.