All week I’ve been stumped for a topic for Conjugal Visits, and nobody except The Gmail Team and my editor ever sends anything to me at my 303 email address, which happens to be jamie@dev-303magazine.pantheonsite.io. (I slightly prefer relationship questions, but will gladly take pictures that will give me nightmares and stories about Matt Lauer growing a mustache.)
With my weekly deadline looming, I turned to the Internet for help. When I Googled “Weird relationship shit”, this Cosmopolitan article called 6 Weird Things That Affect Your Relationship promptly popped up. After I spent approximately 38 minutes contemplating whether “affect” was the right word (it is), I was like, “Oh, yeah, I know exactly what six things they’re talking about.”
(Spoiler alert: the article’s lead paragraph, which was really hard to avoid reading, explains “how much sleep you get” is one of the things that affects your bond with your partner. One of the SEVEN things, apparently, since there are six more listed in the slideshow.)
So, here’s the list I came up with:
1. Sleep (It would have been #1 on my personal list as well, mostly because when I’m forced to tend to my children at night and therefore lose precious sleep, my “dark” side comes out. Ben calls her Midnight Mommy. Ben is very afraid of Midnight Mommy.)
2. One partner wanting to wear political-themed or animal-related masks during intercourse and the other partner steadfastly refusing. This is weird, and incompatible sexual agendas will probably affect your relationship. This is *not* something the priest is going to make you talk about during your church-sanctioned marriage counseling, but it should be talked about nonetheless, people.
3. Queefing, which is slang for “vaginal flatulence” for those of you who haven’t had children yet and/or skipped third grade. Queefing during sex, to be precise.
4. Farting and lying about it being a queef, which is something either party to the relationship can do but will only be remotely believable if you actually have a vagina.
5. Using the word “queef” too much, which is something my husband frowns upon.
6. Removing all of the socks from your partner’s sock drawer and replacing them with hundreds of these lavender scented penises that can should be purchased on Lei Schwartz’s Etsy shop:
7. Insisting that your partner sit down with you and read this stupid list of weird things that won’t affect your relationship.
In case you’re curious, here’s the “real” list:
1. Sleep
2. Your Weight
3. Your Guy’s Parents
4. Your Commute
5. Your Contraception
6. Your Cell
7. Your Dog (see? That’s SEVEN. Whoever is doing the headlines at Cosmopolitan needs help with their math. Which, coincidentally, is sort of weird but probably won’t have any effect on her (or his) relationship. Unless, of course, she is asked to divide a bag of Skittles equally among herself and her partner and ends up giving herself way more Skittles because she doesn’t count well and this makes her partner, who greatly values equality, really livid.)