Ugg,

I’ve been with my girlfriend for just under a year and a half. I’m in my early twenties and she’s about the same age, slightly younger. We’ve been past the “I Love You’s” and after college plan on building a life together but for now are just taking it slow since we both work and go to school.

I know she gets busy, but sometimes, it seems that she is NAGGING all the time! I find that certain things that should help, do not. If we’re arguing over facts, I can prove it and that doesn’t end it - it just changes the argument. If we’re arguing over emotions, it ends up boiling into something that we already discussed. I know you’ve talked about manThink and chickLogic, but what does that mean here - why can’t we just have a debate rather than a full-blown argument? I feel like the fighting is tearing away at our relationship…

Surprisingly, you’re not alone here. You see, men are logical creatures. Women tend to be emotional creatures.

Men think in problems and solutions. As hunters and gatherers in our most basic forms, men are biologically drawn to solving problems. Hungry? Ugg go kill mammoth. Tired? Ugg sleep, so he can hung mammoth tomorrow. For dozens if not hundreds, even thousands of years, men have been in charge of feeding, sheltering, and protecting. Ugg doesn’t do the feeding, sheltering, or the emotional protecting. Ugg supplies the raw materials. Ugg’s female counterpart is best suited to those tasks.

Men are very basic that way. And we argue that way also. Women do NOT, however. And this is where you may be running into problems communicating.

Women often only need a catalyst for emotional discussion. You may have heard that women do not want a man to give them solutions, only a man to lend an ear. Those are words to live by.

For those who have seen “The Break Up”, you might remember this fight over Vince Vaughn not wanting to do dishes:

Gary: “Fine, I’ll help you do the damn dishes.”
Brooke: “That’s not what I want. I want you to want to do the dishes.”
Gary: “Why would I want to do dishes?”

You see, in most cases, women nag because they want to be heard and they don’t see that their point is getting across. Something I learned a long time ago was to treat a lover’s quarrel like a fist fight.

When someone approaches you to start a fight, you have two options: fight or disarm them with reason. When your girl comes at you with a harsh “You” statement like “You never…” or “You always…”, she’s got her fists up.

You can fight back, and scream back louder, but it will only get messy AND you will do absolutely NOTHING to help what she originally had plans to nag/fight/discuss. So unless you want to do this ALL OVER AGAIN, it’s important to stop the minute you hear those You statements and think…

If you try to defend yourself, you’ve communicated that you wish to fight and that it’s ON. So swallow your pride and chalk this up to her just not knowing how to communicate well. This is not the time to see who’s got the bigger jimmy, or who can yell the loudest. This is the time for you to shut up and disarm her as quickly as possible to avoid escalation.

DO NOT USE ‘YOU’ STATEMENTS!

The “You” statement is an attack - a jab with your vocal sword. We’re defending, not attacking here, so we’re going to try a disarming technique.

“I…” statements are what we’re looking for here. When she has a complaint, first we have to qualify it - is this just the tip of the iceberg, or is it the real issue? Often a woman will start a fight about something stupid, only for it to be completely irrelevant later. You have to qualify her statement and disarm fast.

Now you may not want to give in - nor should you have to. But just like you don’t try logic with a bear attacking you - you don’t try logic with a woman in an argument. Proving yourself right will only exacerbate the problem.

Qualify The Problem

I like the phrase, “Fair enough…”. It lets them know that they are being taken seriously, that you ‘hear what they are saying’, and that you’re talking on their level. Eye contact is a wise move here because you want to at least appear authentic.

Request Her Help Finding A Solution

Further qualifying their issue by pointing out a flaw in your actions, allows them to feel less threatened and when they feel as such - the woman will listen as well. You want disarm her by taking her out of ‘fight’ mode. Additionally, without being condescending, ask her to help think of a solution. This way you get her participating. Not only was she right, but now she even gets to help decide what to do.

Wrong… Is Right

Don’t worry about being ‘wrong’. The winner is the one who stops the fighting, even if she doesn’t realize that. With school and work, I imagine you already have little extra time to fight - why not spend it doing something more rewarding?

Eventually, if this happens often, when you’re not fighting you may want to express that the past few times you’ve fought, you felt more got done when ‘both of us’ stopped using ‘You’ and started using ‘I’ to discuss your feelings. If you can get her on board here, you can better understand what she really wants and it will also teach her to get to her point quicker and without fuss.

It’s a lot like talking a scared cat down from a tree. Come at it with force, it’ll get scared. Instead, you want to talk it down gently.

Tags: women, nagging, relationship, fighting, girlfriend, boyfriend, love