Cracked.com article

Cracked.com is one of my favorite web sites.  Some of the stuff they do is hilarious.  In particular, I love their lists.  http://www.cracked.com/article_19230_the-5-least-romantic-keys-to-happy-relationship.html  is a great example.

The best part is, the lists tend to be true.   If you want the funny stuff, click above, here I am going to go over their list items and talk about them as serious relationship advice.

5.  Spend some time apart.  In our culture (i.e. TV, movies, etc.) couples spend all their time together and you see spouses doing something their wife/husband wants even though they hate it.   Don't DO that.  You don't have to do everything together, if you don't enjoy something, don't do it.  While it works fine for the short term, over the long term you begin to resent the other person for making you do crap you hate.

4.  It's not a bad idea to Sleep in separate beds.   You can still have sex together, you don't have to sleep together.   Not everyone can sleep together.  If one of you is restless/cover hog, or simply has a different sleep schedule, trying to sleep together may make you cranky all day.  Not worth it, just to conform to a cultural stereotype.

3. Here, the Cracked said to marry an ugly/stupid man.  I am going to disagree a bit here - and expand it.  I think the studies they were looking at were biased.  They think men want the same thing from a woman as women want from a men, instead of equivalent things, so they failed to look at the things women want.

 I read the study as showing that 'perfect' spouses are not worth it - they are more likely to cheat, among other things.  So you need to select the issues you want to have.   If you try to get someone that on paper looks 100 times better than you (i.e. perfect), that means that either a) they have massive hidden flaws, or b) they are just using you till someone that is better comes along.

3. Cracked said "lie to yourself about how good your spouse is".   Again, I interpret this differently. Instead I think it means that you find someone that has qualities YOU personally value more than the rest of the world (or don't dislike as badly as the rest of the world).  If you are a guy that doesn't mind a couple of extra pounds, I assure you it will be a lot easier to find a woman with a couple of extra pounds than it will be to date someone without those pounds.  Similarly, if you are a girl that doesn't care about height either way, don't even bother looking at tall men, you will get much better quality looking at the many short men that get discarded.

1.  Schedule Sex.  Here I agree entirely.  Things I don't put on my schedule don't get done.  Spontaneous is nice, but only if it is on TOP of the schedule.   Too many times do I notice people getting upset that something isn't 'perfect', which prevents them from having something at all.   Would you not eat at all because the meal you got was wrong?  If it isn't perfect, you can try again TOMORROW.