How A Tube Of Toothpaste Can Help You Have A Better Relationship

Paul McCandless, MFT
6 min readDec 16, 2018
Photo by Belle Collective on Unsplash

Remember when you first met? Everything was new and exciting. Each day you were together, brought another discovery. Sure he had some quirks which, if it were someone else, you might become more bothered, but his quirks were well, his quirks. Besides, he’s cute. So, you discount his idiosyncrasies.

As time passed, you discovered more about each other. It was still exciting and new, but exciting and new in a more familiar way.

Then comes the day when you discover something about him you didn’t know. “Has he been hiding this from me?” you ask yourself with a noticeable twinge of anxiety. Although not a deal-breaker, you are confronted by a concerning fact:

He’s a middle-of-the-toothpaste-tube squeezer!

I know, this was a difficult revelation. Like myself, as a bottom-of-the-toothpaste-tube squeezer, you were shocked. It is always shocking when you discover someone you’ve come to care about is misguided. You also know that with effort, he can step out of the shadows and into the light. He can find the bottom-of-the-toothpaste-tube squeezer within and reach his potential.

You think, by demonstrating the correct toothpaste squeezing technique, he will see the error of his ways. So you set out to model how much better his life can be by…

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Paul McCandless, MFT

Therapist, observer of the human drama, proud father and grandfather, and long time human being. www.relateandconnect.com