In the Dog House – on the Rooftop – off to the Desert

Part Two: The Nagging Wife

What is a nagging quarrelsome wife to do?

✓ Confess

Recognize your quarrelsome habits and admit or confess that you have a problem. So, how can you tell you might be nagging? If you’ve said the same thing 100 times, 100 different ways, and yet it doesn’t seem to be enough.

✓ Repent

During the Middle Ages, a person who was accused of nagging would sometimes have to wear a Scold’s Bridle which was placed over the head and restricted the use of the mouth, so as to stop the nagging. At that time, nagging was seen as sin or crime which had to be stopped.

✓ Pray

In order to confess and repent one needs help from God. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). With God’s help any wife can be turned away from being contentious to being a virtuous woman.

✓ Fight the Problem Not the Person

When a spouse see their partner as the problem in their marriage and they must be changed if the marriage is to move forward or survive, they have focused on the person and not the real problem. Nagging sets the couple at odds and puts the husband of the defense. Couples must learn to act as a team to defeat the problems.

✓ Stop Making Demands

Instead of demanding that the husband change, realize that real change comes when the other person makes a commitment to do or be better. You cannot really nag anyone into a lasting change unless they have a willing heart. Furthermore, “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15). Say what you have to say in a kind and loving manner. Screaming and yelling at your husbands only makes the wife look like she his immature and throwing a temper tantrum. Instead of making a demands be patient. “Love is long suffering” (1 Cor. 13:4).

✓ Stop the Resentment

A quarrelsome wife may get to the point where she cannot talk respectfully to her husband. They may talk sweet and kind to everyone else. They may control their every word and expression. But when it comes to their thoughtless, immature husband they cannot even muster up and smile or kind word. Perhaps wives need to remember Sarah. “For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, 6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror” (1 Peter 3:5,6). She had a great relationship with her husband Abraham. She was submissive and called him “Lord.” This occurrence took place in Genesis 18:12 where she is not speaking to him but about her husband. The term used is not the Greek despotes but a term which could be translated “Sir.” A good wife, like Sarah, shows respect to her husband when she speaks to him or about him.

✓ Stop Digging up the Past

Some wives get hysterical when quarreling with their husbands. Others become historical. They bolster their agreement by going back in the history of their marriage and digging up every problem she has ever had with her husband. It reminds me of two brothers who had a cat they loved very much. One day it died and their mother told them to go bury it. The next day the mother found her sons petting the dead cat. She scolded them and told them to bury it behind the shed. Later she went out to see if they obeyed her. There she found the cat buried, except for its tale was sticking up out of the ground. When she questioned this bizarre behavior her sons explained, “we buried the cat like you said, but left the tail out so when we start missing our cat we can pull it up by the tail and pet it.” Some couples will not forget their grievances, but keep pulling them up and inserting them in every future fight. Perhaps a couple should sit down, write these past issues out, forgive each other, pray together, and put them in a shoe box. They can go out into the woods, dig a hole, and bury them once and for all never to bring them up again in an argument. Unless of course they want to literally go dig them up.

✓ Have a Meek and Quiet Spirit

“A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knows nothing” (Prov. 9:13). Instead, “do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel— rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God” (1 Peter 3:3,4). The inward beauty is a gentle and quiet spirit. Gentle or meek “is the temper of spirit in which we accept his dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting” (Trench 152). Quiet “causes no disturbance to others” (Vine 3:242). When women lose their youth to the effects of aging then must “not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).

All need to remember that it is the inner heart and its beauty which is most appealing or pleasing to God. When Samuel was sent to anoint a new king over Israel from the house of Jesse, God told him that He “sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (2 Sam. 16:7).

✓ Respect Headship

It is hard for anyone to respect the Homer Simpson type husband. But, God has given man a role to play in the home and marriage and it involves showing respect to the head of the house.

“For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church” (Eph. 5:23). This goes all the way back to God’s will in the beginning. “To the woman he said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you’”(Genesis 3:16).

✓ Submit

Paul wrote, “Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything…and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Eph. 5:24,33).

✓ Check Your Motives

Wives should ask themselves, what are they really trying to resolve? What is so important? Are they trying to change him or help him change. Are they rebelling against his authority. Trying to undermine and demean him because they selfishly want thing their way. Are they trying to excuse themselves for their own faults but casting attention on their husband’s hoping they will draw attention away from their own faults.

✓ Use Kind Words

What one says is often a window into the contents of one’s heart. Jesus said, “out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). Paul said, “let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers…and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:29,32) The virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 “opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness” (Proverbs 31:26).

Wives watch what you say and how you say it. Choose the right words. Nagging tends to shame and blame, calling attention to areas that your loved one may already feel vulnerable about. Also wives need to choose the right tone. “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold In settings of silver” (Proverbs 25:11),

✓ Be Discrete

Wives who use discretion will not resort to nagging. “As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a lovely woman who lacks discretion” (Proverbs 11:22). Israelite women often wore nose rights as part of their jewelry. If a woman shows no discretion mere physical attractiveness cannot compensate. Wives can ask a questions or explanation instead.

– Daniel R. Vess