The following letter I recently received will strike a chord with millions of married women:

"My husband doesn't do a damned thing around here--chores, sex, bills, the house, food, anything--which means that I carry the burden of doing everything. I'm tired of it, so I've become hyper-critical and constantly dissatisfied with him. Eventually, I get overwhelmed and just quit doing anything, and then it all goes downhill. When we try to discuss anything, it turns into an argument, which is devastating. Then I get demanding, and he gives in and says that I'm right, and he apologizes all over the place. Then he kisses my butt, and I don't respect that either. We both want to be happy, but we keep doing this. I love him, but I'm tired of this. I feel like his parent, and I don't want to be."

As you already know, your nagging is having terrible effects on you, on your husband, and on your marriage.

First, it's destroying your marriage. When you nag your husband, you're irritated of course, and all he hears is "I don't love you." The negative effects of those words cannot be overestimated. It's almost impossible for anything positive to happen after those words have been spoken or heard.

Second, the constant tension creates a terrible burden on you. It's utterly exhausting, isn't it?

There's a way out, and as usual, it's always about Real Love. You said you love your husband, but you'll take a giant leap forward when you see that you really don't. You ARE doing your best--I have no doubt of that--and you want to love him, but you're not loving him unconditionally, which is the only kind of love that counts. I promise you he doesn't feel loved.

With your disappointment and anger, it's clear that your love for him is conditional, and that is very common in marriages. Don't feel guilty about it. The only reason you don't love him unconditionally is that you've never received enough Real Love yourself--from parents and others--to be able to give him any.

So what can you do? The most important thing is to find enough Real Love that you can bring that quality to your marriage. That will change everything. Tell the truth about your mistakes--as a person, as a wife--to some friends. You can read about how to do that in the book, Real Love, and in the book, Real Love for Wise Men and Women. As you tell the truth about yourself, you'll create opportunities for other people to accept and love you unconditionally.

As you love your husband, miracles will happen:

First, the conflicts you're having will stop. When you have enough Real Love, you have the greatest treasure in the universe. No kidding. When you have twenty million dollars, you don't tend to fuss over each two dollars that you don't get or any two dollars that's taken from you. You'll discover that a sock on the floor, for example, is just a sock. Right now, when you see a sock on the floor, you hear it crying out in your husbands voice, "I don't love you." You see it as a piece of evidence that he doesn't care about you--which is true--and that makes you crazy..

Second, your husband will tend to do more thing around the house. Imagine that you're a volunteer in some organization that I'm the boss of--the Red Cross, a soup kitchen, whatever--and all I ever do is nag you and say negative things. Would you be likely to word harder for me, or after a while would you do the least you could, or even give up entirely? Obvious, isn't it? On the other hand, if I loved you completely, unconditionally, to the point that being around me just lit up your life, how would you work? You'd probably be willing to do anything I asked you to do. It's just not rewarding to work hard when nothing you do is good enough, and I can virtually assure you that your husband feels that way. When he feels your love for him, though, it's very likely that he'll want to do things for you.

Third, whether he does more around the house or not, you will be happier. When you have enough Real Love, by comparison everything else seems fairly insignificant. Really.

Now, I realize that finding Real Love, learning to love your husband, and getting to the point where he feels your love and trusts it will take some time. So what can you do in the meantime?

Go to him and say, "I've been a real witch. What you've wanted most from me is to love you, and I haven't done that. Instead I've been demanding and difficult. I'm going to try to never nag you again. It's not worth it. I don't want to hurt you or our marriage any more. We'll talk about how to get things done around here, but without me being irritated, which doesn't help anybody."

Then make up a list of the things that need to be done around the house, and instead of telling him what to do, ask him what jobs on the list he'd like to do. Then say, "You're my favorite person, and I'm not going to screw that up by nagging you about things. Can we meet again in a week to talk about how it's going with our jobs?"

For that week, you say nothing to him about his assignments, but every week, you'll have a meeting to talk about what needs to be done. Make adjustments in the assignments where needed. Choose to be grateful for what he IS doing, instead of critical about what he's not doing. In some ways this could sound like you're babying him. If you do this right, you won't be. This is how loving adults work together. They simply agree on what needs to be done, and then they periodically report on their progress. He may not end up doing everything you want, but he'll respond to this approach much better than what you're doing now. It couldn't get much worse, could it?

Remember that it's always about Real Love. That's far more important than getting a particular task done in any given moment.