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A Chair

Beautifully written short story about a woman and her house guest. The narrator describes the state of her marriage in words that reminded me of scenes from many marriages I have seen at close quarters

At the time we had been married for almost three years, we had two children, and I wasn’t happy. To my husband I represented something like a piece of furniture, which you’re used to seeing in a particular spot but which doesn’t make the slightest impression.

The spouse in due course becomes a piece of furniture around the house that everyone is used to seeing at the designated spot. It may have some intrinsic value even like a chair you sometimes sit on to tie your shoe-laces but not quite the favorite couch where you curl up with a book under a throw. Such a chair has utility in the household and it would be annoying to all concerned if it one day went missing. 

But it is not a big, irreparable loss - another chair can take its place or the person needing to tie their shoe laces could perhaps find another place to do so. Either way, life would go on unhindered. That is why the chair "doesn't make the slightest impression". Such could be the fate of spouse in an unhappy marriage. 
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