Continued … "From a legal point of view, nagging is considered a frivolous issue and cannot be a ground for divorce," advocate Kranti Sathe says. "It has to be proved that the nagging was so bad that it amounted to cruelty. Most men can’t provide that legal proof, no matter how real it is, so it is usually listed as ‘incompatibility’."

The essential cause of nagging is that one partner takes something seriously and the other partner doesn’t. This is the centre of the whole problem.

The victim

A typical woman’s comment was this: "You know, he moans so much about sex, sometimes I just give in to shut him up. It's just much easier to go along with it than to listen to him moan. If I dress up to go out with a friend, he complains that I make more effort for them than I ever do for him. I feel I can't win."

A typical man’s comment was this: "From the moment I arrive home until the moment I fall asleep, she starts her nagging and never lets up. I should be excited about leaving work and getting home to see her but when I get to the door, I just can’t go in, knowing what is coming."

The most serious reactions came from India. In Ram Gopal Varma’s My Wife’s Murder, the hero’s wife nags him so much that he kills her. Protests by women’s organizations made him alter the plot but Varma has recently said, with the freedom that only divorced men have, that nagging is so annoying that the thought of killing their wives regularly crosses most men’s minds.

From a male standpoint, it happens exactly at the time of day when he needs companionship and a chance to wind down. The more the nagger nags, the more the victim retreats behind the kind of defensive barriers that drive the nagger crazy and the more isolated she becomes.

The only real outcome that ever comes from nagging is destructive.

Allan and Barbara Pease, co-authors on a book on the issue, say: "Usually, when a woman starts repeating her orders, the male brain hears only one thing: nagging. Like a dripping tap, the nag, nag, nagging wears away at the base of his soul and builds a simmering, intense resentment against her, while she quite genuinely believes she is doing him good."

The nagger

Women do not call "nagging" when they do it. They call it a "natural reaction" or "improving him".

"Sandeep doesn’t make any effort to rectify his habits and when I complain, he calls me a nag. That really hurts," said Radhika Nair.

So what is it about marriage that turns an otherwise cool and composed woman into, well, something else? The power equation between genders leads to situations where the woman is left to request, request again, argue, argue again, and battle for what she wants.

An Ohio State University research last year said that women appear to nag more because, after all, women have more to ask for. When it comes to sex, which women control, men then become the nags.

Amita Shah says. "It’s a combination pattern — the more one partner evades and tries to cut the nagging off, the more the other person is provoked to nag. It’s a classic concept in family therapy called "circular causality" where we blame each other for everything."

Allan and Barbara Pease say: "A nagger sees herself as constructive. She knows she's being irritating, but believes the only way to get through to a man is by repeating the same thing, over and over, until one day, hopefully, it sinks in to his brain, even though it never actually does. She puts this down to his basic stupidity."

The researchers put forth an interesting hypothesis: A female brain is organized for multi-tracking -she can juggle four or five topics at the same time.

He: "Is Sue coming over for the party?"
She: "Sue said she'll come over, depending on how things go with carpet orders – they’ve slowed down because of the economy and Fiona may not come because Andrew has to see a specialist and Nathan’s lost his job too so he has to get a new one - oh - and that reminds me …"
He: "Does that mean 'yes' or 'no'?"

Male brains are organized for mono-tracking. They can only concentrate on one thing at a time, usually sex. When a telephone rings he asks everyone to be quiet so he can answer it. He can't make love and at the same time answer questions on why he didn't collect her new skirt from the boutique. One of the big problems for men is when multi-tracking happens during the nagging process. That ends up in physical violence.

How serious is it?

"Nagging" is a topic only a man would bring up for discussion. Therefore, it is seldom discussed. Just as an alcoholic can’t admit his problem, so the nagger can never admit to nagging either. She focus instead on other issues – respect, earning power, bad habits [of the man] and so on.

However, as men everywhere consistently put "nagging" at the top of the list of their pet hates, surely it must at least be seriously considered. In the USA alone, there are more than two thousand cases a year of men murdering their wives and claiming that nagging drove them to it.

The solution

As there is no third gender to arbitrate, then someone must start the process of reconciliation.

I argue that it should start with the man. After all, he went to all the expense and trouble of getting her in the first place, so why wouldn’t he want to protect his investment? He must be man enough to make the first concessions, to show her the way. He must let her have her three or four hours listing all his faults and not argue with her. In fact, she must be satisfied he has genuinely considered what she said.

When his turn comes, he should refuse to list any of her faults but should instead hold her close, then take her out for a treat. My experience is that when a man goes to these lengths, she appreciates the effort and what it’s cost him and he ends up getting most of what he wants anyway.

On the other hand, if this produces absolutely no result, it should be easier to immediately drop her and cut his losses. It works the other way round, as well.

Now the worrying difficulty of attributing: On my computer are thousands of old files from pre-blogging days, never intended to be anything but privately read. Now that I want to post some of them, I can’t link or attribute but still, I’d like them to see the light of day. If you are the author of some of the material in this post [which draws from seven or eight authors], please inform me and I’ll immediately attribute.