Marriage Moats-Washing Machines
Published: Thu, 10/07/10
| Marriage Moats | Caring for Marriage |
 No one I know is overly mortified when their clothes get smeared with tomato sauce. You plug the chore of doing laundry into your routine somewhere between grocery shopping and paying bills. Clothes get dirty. You wash them. No shame in that. On the contrary, I once gave a quilt to a bachelor who did not think Irish Chains could get wet, and eight years later I was aghast to see how filthy it was. I sent it through the heavy cycle with triple soap.
I don't usually warn my kids "You didn't get any clothes dirty this week did you?" I skip the formality and say "Bring me your full laundry basket."
My clever mother did buy me a dress when I was
seven that was reversible. It was blue with green flowers on one side,
and solid blue with a yellow pocket on the other. I remember getting it
dirty at a restaurant and she took me in the bathroom to turn it inside
out. We came out looking fresh, but I bet she still washed it.
More recently I stood beneath the Eiffel Tower
with my five oldest kids, and while we waited in line splurged on French
ice cream cones. I chose chocolate, feeling especially decadent, and
promptly dripped on my white shirt. This time it was my oldest daughter
who pulled a Swash spot removing pen from her bare bones back pack possessions
and wiped it clean. What would it be like to have laundromats for marriages? All of the relationships that I have seen get soiled by grimy feelings and behaviors. What is our system for regular cleaning? Some couples pray together, which is good hygiene. I recently started saying I am sorry to John for..... fill in the blank. I am trying to shift the question from "I didn't do anything wrong this week, did I?" to "What have I done that caused you pain?" It is as likely that I stepped on his emotional toes as that I spilled grape juice at breakfast. Both may have been accidental, but a response cleans it up better than pretending it never happened.
"Grape juice on my shirt? What grape juice?" I stammer, while whipping a stack of mail to obscure the spot. I tie a scarf around my neck to cover it, but the purpleness is really on my shoulder and the neckerchief hangs in the center. It takes a lot of effort to keep mistakes hidden.
John is actually the King of Spot Removal in our spouseship. He tackles stains with an armory of potions he hides under the sink. He knows which ones respond to bleach or alcohol, hot water or cold. .
Gary Chapman wrote a book about the Five Languages of Apology. He suggests that different stains in relationships respond better to different kinds of apologies.
I do know that when John said he was sorry for something he had done eight years ago, the smudge on my heart disappeared, just as if he had used a magical spot removing pen. He did not even need triple soap.
Photo by Andy Sullivan
www.caringformarriage.org
| |