Have you got a marriage blister? That would be an irritation resulting from something that rubs you the wrong way, day after day after day.
For example, you find a raised toilet seat offensive, and you have to lower it several times a day. Or you make the dinner and expect this means you will not have to wash any dishes, but they are still on the counter at bedtime at least every other day. Or you try for a kiss only to hear, try after try, “No! I haven’t brushed yet.”
That’s a marriage blister, inflamed by a minor irritation that gets repeated over and over. After one forms, no matter how much you like the shoes, you will dislike wearing them.
Here are three ways to heal a marriage blister.
- Find a Third Alternative, a mutually satisfying alternative that reduces the friction. A toilet that lifts with a foot pedal and lowers automatically might work.
- Expect Love. If you lived alone, unloved, there would still be dishes to wash after making dinner. Why tell yourself that unwashed dishes are a valid indicator of whether or not you are loved? Break out the paper plates and look for other signs that you are loved. Maybe the shoe is fine, and it’s a burr on your foot causing the blister.
- Assume Love. Before you get all red and sore, ask if there is some way your mate could be trying to show you love, rather than rejection, by delaying that first kiss? Perhaps if you received the love gratefully, the closed-lip irritation would disappear in short order.
When the blister’s gone, the shoes look so fine!
