Anytime Paul gets sick my nursing skills get tested. I guess I'm of the mindset that it isn't that bad. I have a hard time being nice to him when he's sick as a dog. What's wrong with me?
But then, tonight, I found out that he has a fault too. My back has been hurting all day on one side. I was watching a movie in our bedroom and Paul came in and laid down. I waited a couple minutes then looked over to make sure he was still awake. (The man is notorious for falling asleep during movies. He'll start one of his movies and be asleep within 10 minutes.) So I asked him to massage my back because it hurt. He looked at me, then asked if it was because of the way I was laying as he made a half-hearted attempt to rub with a couple fingers. I told him no, I wasn't sure what I had done. He stopped after like a minute and asked if that was better. Well as most people know, one minute of a massage doesn't usually solve a knot in your back.
Paul continued to massage my back, but admitted to me that he wasn't very good at it. And I quote, "I'm not very good at massaging, I'm used to being the one getting the massages." It made me laugh, because that was something else his mom did for him was give him head massages and foot massages. Especially after soccer games, he used to tell me how his mom would rub his feet. (Shake my head.) Then he compared his massaging to my nursing- not good, bordering on bad. So I made sure to tell him that if he would practice he might get better. Of course, I've been "trying" to get better at nursing for his sake for 11 years.
As a couple, instead of getting frustrated that he can't massage worth anything and I can't nurse or drum up much sympathy for him, we laugh about it. We joke about how bad a nurse I am, although I will voluntarily go get the popsicles as soon as he starts to cough. And tonight, I laughed as he tried to move that knot out of my back and failed. We've found that laughing together makes our marriage stronger. We let it bond us together, rather than let our faults tear us apart. Relationships can be tricky things, try to laugh more.