How to stop nagging, forever

Nagging is the least sexy thing on earth.

Given how much I like having sex with my husband, it’s a mystery I’ve done it as much as I have. Asking someone to take out the recycling more than once gives me the ick for both of us.

Here is how to stop:

1. Make your words mean something

I have an angelic dog that is beyond reproach and does not listen to a single word I say. His name is Matcha. I say the word Matcha around one thousand times a day, and his exquisitely sensitive ears don’t so much as twitch.

“I’m worried he is actually deaf”, I say to my husband, one thousand times a day.

My husband, ever so gently, crinkles an oreo wrapper from a great distance. Matcha is already here. Matcha is already ready. Nothing has ever mattered so much, so urgently, to anyone.

Make your words the oreo wrapper, not the Matcha.

This is difficult, if you are not offering your beloved an oreo, but the opportunity to take out the recycling. The trick is a little bit of negative reinforcement — offer the opportunity to avoid an anti-oreo (I would never do this to Matcha, which is probably why we are in this situation):

• Ask for the thing you would like, once. Make sure the request is fair and reasonable, and do not make requests one thousand times a day.

• If they are going to fail, let them fail. No nagging.

• Let this failure hurt you.

• Tell them, directly, this has hurt you and why. Do not passively aggressively shove rinsed-out bean cans into a plastic bag and respond to their texts with thumbs-up emojis.

• They will see you have been hurt. This will hurt them. They will not want to do it all that often.

Ah, damn, the trick here is you have to actually want things from them that are reasonable, and they have to actually care about making you upset.

(And, if we’re being serious about it, you could situate this particular failure in the context of your entire relationship, ask yourself why they have failed (exhausted? burned out? hates you?) and consider that if they never take out the trash and you never stop nagging them about it, there might be some bigger issues to address that you can’t use the reverse-oreo method for.)

But those are other posts. This one is 600 words. Assuming you got the above sorted, just let them fail.

(Matcha, post me shouting “MATCHA!”)

2. Align with the part of them that wants it (credit to Mark Estefanos)

There is a tone thing to the nagging. It is the tone of an exasperated parent to the revolting teenage boy. Or the exhausted teacher to the snotty child who just won’t get their letters right. It is trying to drag someone into the realm of correctness, where you - thank god - already reside.

But c’mon. You’ve not wanted to take the bins out either. You’ve left dishes in the sink for days, I know it.

The trick here is to align with the parts of them that want it too.

There is a version of your husband that is a revolting teenager. If you talk as to the teenager, the teenager might respond.

There is a version of your husband that is a wonderful adult who also doesn’t like seeing trash in the living room. If you talk to him, he might respond.

Play around in your psychic space until you feel oriented towards the person as if they share your goals, rather than gearing up to tell someone off.

The words will then be easy: “I know you wanted to sort that stuff before our friends come over, they’re coming at 6, by the way”, versus “why haven’t you done that yet??” (why is the dead giveaway; you don’t want an explanation of the genetic and environmental factors that caused this unfortunate incident, you want them to stop being such an inconsiderate prick).

These are the lessons. Now go and be sexy.

Matcha, 0.001s post oreo-crinkle.