Nagging - A Short Story

No sex in this one and its a short. A bit tongue in cheek as well. Hope you enjoy it.

It had become a stand off!

We (me Chris) and my best three friends since we were kids were determined to go on a week-long climbing and outdoor trip to the West Coast of Scotland. We had talked about for the past three years, but our family commitments kept getting in the way and now our wives had joined forces and decided it was clearly a ridiculous idea. Now in our 30th year there could be no more excuses.

We sat in the pub reflecting on the trials of married life. A common theme was that when we started dating our then girlfriends loved the range of interest we had and that the four of stuck together no matter what. Since marriage, that had deteriorated over the years to the point where our interests, hobbies and even friendships were viewed as a problem. One by one our activities had been dropped: football, climbing, mountain biking, kayaking.

With the insight several beers provide we concluded that all four of our wives had turned in 'nags'. They seemed to take pride in their ability to control our lives and everything in it. There was no end to it: earn more, work more, you can't do that, lists of jobs. It had become a habit for them; I mean why marry someone because they are 'perfect' and then try to change them. Jack had even found himself asking for permission to come to the pub tonight; even though the frequency of the lads having a few beers had diminished to only once every couple of weeks.

As last orders approached and with the bravery of alcohol we declared enough was enough and we were going on the trip no matter what. We were masters of our own destiny, kings of our castles; we'd withdraw labour and refuse to do jobs if we needed to.

The texts and messages over the following few days reflected the folly of our alcohol induced plan. None of the wives were happy and most weren't speaking to us (not all bad I thought). But with the collusion of an underground resistance movement, we encouraged each other to stay strong and not back down.

On our next scheduled lads night out, the wives announced they were going on a girl's night and we had to sort the kids. Not to be deterred we went over to Rob's house. Once all the kids were shepherded into the games/ cinema room, they had a wail of a time together. We dads had a few beers to make up for missing out on the pub.

Things changed about 9pm. We all received a text to the families group chat from Matt's wife Claire asking if we still intended to go on our trip.

Sensing a trap and not wanting to over complicate things, Matt bravely replied... "Yes."

Michelle replied next, "Well in that case maybe we should continue looking for our second husbands."

We looked at each other confused. The next message was from my wife Helen. It was a selfie photo of the four wives dancing in a club. Quite a few guys could be seen around them.

I replied "Seriously, think about what you are doing."

Jack's wife Carol replied next, "Trust us, we are."

What followed was series of photos of all four wives dancing with youngish looking guys at the club. A constant stream of texts followed:

"Having a great time, making new friends."

"Yey more free drinks from the guys."

"We've found a new hobby too."

"Don't be jealous we have done anything... yet"

"Selection process for next husbands as ours went on strike."

After initially deciding we shouldn't respond or comment because that's what they were after, we couldn't resist and tried phoning our wives, none of them picked up. We agreed on a group response:

"Remember there are consequences to all actions. Don't do anything we might all regret."

I couldn't resist posting Helen a separate private message "Hope you have picked one, you are going to need him."

In response a short video was posted, it showed the girls dancing closely with guys and I noticed one guy in the back ground had his hands on Helen's arse.

Fuck this had suddenly become serious, very serious.

We decided to go to the club but no one wanted to be left behind to look after the kids. I thought about Helen's mum looking after them but it would take too long to arrange. Then I realised my mum in law might be even more useful.

I told the guys my idea and they agreed.

We all copied the photos, texts and the video onto our social media, with a covering comment "Our faithful wives demonstrating their love."

The results were instant. Helen's mum was first in line with the comments asking what on Earth was going on and no daughter of hers would ever act in such a brazen manner. If there was a better nagger than Helen it was her mum, she was like a sensei master at it. A whole stream of other comments followed from family and friends. Most asking what was going on but some quite abusive and even a couple suggesting to dump them and move on with our lives. Jack even received an online proposal.

Matt sent a "Check social media" to the group chat.

There was no response, but the photos and video were deleted from the chat. Too late already shared. I imagined their phones would be blowing up with calls about now.

We were still trying to arrange a baby sitter so we could go to a club when another message arrived from Helen.

"We are in a taxi... on our way home."

They arrived together looking very sheepish and full of apologies. They were met with a torrent of expletives and questions. Thankfully the kids were entranced by an action movie.

They stressed they were just trying to make us jealous. There was some close dancing and flirting but nothing more. They didn't realise how bad the video looked until they watched in properly. Helen insisted she had slapped the guy who copped a feel just after the video finished.

We weren't sure how truthful they were being. Each received an ultimatum; if they wanted to another husband just say the word. A hysterical crescendo of denials erupted.

Our own interrogation was exceeded by family and friends. Helen's mum phoned and was apoplectic asking if Helen was having a mental breakdown. We eventually relented and agreed to take down the social media.

An uneasy truce was called. One thing we did decide on was that we were heading off on the trip the next week. We needed 'space' to decide if we could trust them and wanted to remain married.

Thankfully a friend of Rob's was in the club, he had recognised our wives, thought it unusual and had then seen the media posts. He confirmed that it had seemed to stop at the dancing and there was a commotion after one of them slapped a guy. Still... no reason to share that information with the girls, we stuck with not being sure we could trust them.

I did have a proper sit down with Helen the next day. She wasn't happy we had posted everything saying it made them look like cheap tarts and she was so embarrassed. Her mum was still giving her a hard time about it. When I suggested she looked that way because that's how she was acting she didn't object saying she really regretted the night out. On reflection it was unbelievably petty, the alcohol made things worse and she was shocked when the guy had grabbed her.

She seemed genuinely unaware about how much she complained and how that made me feel. She admitted being in a cycle of trying to win, modelled by her mum and supported by her friends. Turns out she did appreciate everything I did for her and the kids and just assumed I knew that. We came to some compromises about balancing leisure pursuits with our other commitments. We did still want the same things but I suggested we didn't need to do everything at once or sacrifice other things. In the end she was encouraging me to go on the trip.

The trip with the lads was fantastic it rekindled old memories and friendships. The landscape was truly astonishing, every muscle ached but in a good way, the sort of ache and pain you have earned through hard exercise. We lamented the fact we should have never had let things slide so much and we would definitely be doing a lot more of it in the future.