Dear Mr. Dad: I’ve read a few of your articles where you talked about how fighting isn’t always a bad thing in couples. But what about nagging? My wife and I have a pretty peaceful marriage, except when it comes to my health. I have diabetes and she’s constantly riding me to eat this and not that, get more exercise, check my glucose levels, and on and on. I know she’s doing it because she cares about me, but I’m a grown man and can take care of myself. I’ve asked her to stop, but she just keeps right on going. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. Should we get counseling?
A: For more than 100 years, scientists have told us that marriage is good for our health (especially if you’re a man), reducing our stress levels, lowering the risk of heart attack and stroke, and generally extending life. More recently, researchers have been looking at marital quality as a predictor of health. And the results are pretty much what you’d expect: Happy marriages generally lead to happier, healthier, longer lives, while unhappy ones lead to shorter, leas-healthy lives. There is, however, one exception — and you’re living it. As a guy with diabetes whose marriage may not be everything you think it should be, try to resist the urge to get couples’ counseling. According to researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Chicago, your rocky relationship could be what’s keeping you alive.
That sounds completely counterintuitive, if not downright crazy, doesn’t it? But the way it works is pretty simple. A woman whose husband has diabetes frequently pays more attention to his health than he does, regulating his diet, encouraging him to do plenty of exercise, monitoring his blood glucose levels, and reminding him to take his medication. Some men, you included, would characterize this sort of behavior as micromanagement or nagging. But according to Michigan State sociologist Hui Liu, “sometimes, nagging is caring.” That irksome wife may actually be keeping her husband from developing diabetes in the first place, and reducing the severity of the disease if he gets it anyway.
According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 29 million Americans have diabetes — that’s about nine percent of the population. It’s the 7th leading cause of death in the U.S., killing 70,000 of us every year, and contributing to the deaths of 230,000 more.
Bottom line: Quite complaining about your wife’s nagging. She loves you and there’s a good chance that she’s saving your life.
Read Armin Brott’s blog at www.DadSoup.com, follow him on Twitter, mrdad
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