Yahoo News I’m Waging a Household Toothbrush Battle, and My Husband Hasn’t Noticed Yet
My husband has no idea, but you can always tell how our marriage is doing simply by looking at our toothbrushes.
Yes, I’m serious. Take a gander into our shared bathroom — where, much like marriage itself, the oversized master bath with double shower heads looks enticing, but actually has the tendency to leave you freezing cold if you don’t angle it just right — and you will find an intimate look at the current stage of married love we are in at the moment.
Do you see it? There — right next to my anti-wrinkle cream (a new addition after celebrating my 33rd birthday and realizing that my high school tanning years were a big, big mistake): two toothbrushes, just your standard Colgate version thanks to Amazon Subscribe & Save, that serve as an ever-shifting symbol of our marital love.
If we are currently in one of those rocky marital cycles when I am feeling crushed under the invisible weight of managing a household of seven, updating my brain’s slowing schema of my kids’ ever-changing snack preferences, trying to pay the bills/make a budget-friendly meal plan, save for retirement, shave various body parts, remember who just outgrew their shoes, milk myself four times a day like a cow to feed our baby (and somehow not cry into my coffee) — and my husband has left his dirty socks for me to pick up yet again, well then, reader, you had better believe that man’s toothbrush is not getting changed.
Yup, that’s right. In response to the crushing burden of invisible labor that I, as a millennial mother and wife have unknowingly acquired with no clear direction on how to dig myself out, I have taken it upon myself to fight my silent battle with an oral health device as my only vehicle of protest.
Like a weathered battlefield flag, I will leave his disgusting, splayed-out, worn-out toothbrush sitting in its holder (which was, of course, also purchased by me). I will passively-aggressively take a strong stance and refuse to do it. I will gladly exchange mine for a fresh, new toothbrush, but sneer at his in the holder, feeling my anger boil up inside of me.
He's a grown-ass man, I will think heatedly to myself, as I throw my own toothbrush in the trash, feeling a pang of plastic-induced guilt, and leave his for yet another month. How can he not switch out his own toothbrush? Does he not see its edges unfurling like the wings of a Boeing jet? Does he particularly enjoy brushing his teeth with a hard bed of plastic? How the heck are his teeth even getting clean if there are no bristles left?!? How does he expect me to do these things for him — does he truly think I'm some kind of servant?
Adding insult to injury, of course, is the fact that my husband is not even aware that toothbrushes are meant to be exchanged out on a regular basis. He has no idea that this is something I regularly do, something I've dedicated time and energy into finding a system for. He's probably never noticed when a brand spankin’ new toothbrush just magically appeared in the morning until he casually observed that his gums are no longer bleeding because he’s not brushing with straight-up disintegrated bristles anymore.
So, in a lot of ways, this is a silent and solitary battle that I am engaging in. But I know I’m not completely alone — my toothbrush rebellion is a sign of solidarity with all of the other wives, women, mothers, and partners, who feel forgotten and downtrodden in a world that seems to insist we stay invisible.
So, yes, it’s a toothbrush, but it’s also about so much more. It’s about navigating a dynamic most of us had no idea was coming when we said our vows; it’s about trying to find our own footing even when we feel unseen; it’s about fighting to find a way to true partnership in ways both big and small.
And it’s on mornings, like this morning — when a certain sockless husband got up twice with the baby in the night, snuggled another nightmare-plagued child back to sleep at 2 a.m., brewed the coffee to perfection, and braved the freezing cold to clear the driveway of a sheet of ice — when you might glance at our bathroom counter, complete with its blotches of toothpaste and uncleaned granite...to spot two brand-new toothbrushes nestled side-by-side, starting fresh in the midst of a mess, all over again.
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