By Jamnit Frainkle, licensed marriage counselor
Let’s face it: Marriage is the single stupidest thing involving the government that two people can do together. One day it’s “I want to spend my life with you” and the next you’ve formed an emotional bond with a sex toy.
There are several ways to fortify marital bonds, despite the fact that you’re probably only making things worse in the long run. Here are eight ways to rekindle your marriage and stoke the flames of that terrible dumpster fire you started all those years ago.
Get married
Thirty-eight percent of divorced couples part ways because they realize they never actually got married. Reconnect with your so-called spouse by reminding him or her that you never actually got around to setting a date. After forcing yourselves to set one, you two can enjoy at least a few weeks of recklessly drinking and screwing away the dread of tying the knot before inevitably freaking out and calling it off.
Strike your spouse less often
While nothing inspires hopeless rage and utter despair like marriage, research shows that couples who beat each other the least surprisingly score higher on relationship satisfaction surveys than those who beat them the most — the exception being those who have actually beaten their spouses to death and gotten away with it. The satisfaction rates among this group, especially women, are through the roof.
Actually have sex again
Nothing says “To hell with it, I give up” like legally agreeing to spend the rest of your life not pursuing the opposite sex — which other than eating, sleeping, and stealing is basically the only satisfying activity on the planet. And there is perhaps no more perfect laboratory for cultivating a steadily-increasing mutual resentment than marriage.
There is often only one way to soften the harsh reality of the pressure cooker of the bleak life you’ve doomed yourselves to: grudgingly forcing yourselves to have sex.
So put on some music, drink a lot, turn down the lights (a blindfold may be preferable), and fantasize about the literally billions of beautiful, sybaritic people you could be burying yourself to the hilt in or impaled to the solar plexus by this very moment while mechanically copulating with your limp, disinterested spouse.
The trick is to totally disassociate from yourself and completely alienate your soul and your body, retreating into the fantasy world that could have been your life long enough for your body to technically make love to whatever hideous beast you made the mistake of shackling yourself to.
This technique is the most risky as it has an equal chance of reigniting a sense of intimacy or completely shattering your fragile, barely-duct-taped-together relationship with the shock of how unpleasant it is to have to be in close quarters with your spouse’s grotesque, neglected body.
Renew your vows, but this time be even less realistic
Statistics suggest that most people are simply lying through their teeth when they say “I do” in response to the whole “’till death do you part” bit, favoring “I do” over “whatever” solely for the sake of tradition and social pressure.
But romance thrives in the fertile soil of delusion, denial, and unrealistic expectations. If your roses are wilting, water them with absurdly grandiose declarations of affection that are even more outrageously unrealistic than the wedding vows you made however many years ago you sealed your horrible fate.
One theme to emphasize is somehow not being attracted to the other 98 percent of humanity who are all, if not more sexually attractive than your spouse, at least alluring in the fact that they are far less hateful and dull. Gush about how the unsightly shambles your partner’s body has degenerated into is still — somehow — sexually arousing to you.
When doing so, be careful to always frame things in the positive, and do your best not to gag. For example, say “Your breasts are as perky as the day I met you” rather than “Your breasts do not resemble empty water balloons when you bend over, and even if they did, that would be hot”; say “You’re just big enough for me without hurting me” — with a straight face, if possible — rather than “No, really, my G-spot is only a couple centimeters in.”
Write poetry
Just kidding! Never, ever, attempt to write poetry. You pedantic simpleton. Ugh. Not even privately. Even God is embarrassed by your shallow, pitiful tripe.
If you can’t say something nice, plagiarize
Try Googling “romantic things to say to your spouse,” “ways to say I love you,” or “how to trick anyone into having sex.” Memorize your lines, go out to Dread Blobster, get yourself a room at the end of the building at a Motel 6, and for the love of Milton Berle try not to sound like you’re reading an obituary when you’re saying it.
Commit a husband-and-wife murder
It worked for Mickey and Mallory Knox as well as it did for Bill and Hillary Clinton. While the sight of menstrual blood can be a turn-off for some, both the trauma of slaughtering another human being as well as the sight of your hapless victim’s entrails smeared all over your spouse’s naked body are enough to cause the cognitive centers of the brain to shut down entirely as blood is rushed to the neurological centers responsible for copulating as quickly and barbarically as possible — in this case, before the authorities are able to break into the room.
Get divorced
If your marriage has gotten stale, that’s simply because you’re still married.
Remember when you were single and sex wasn’t something you had to grimly steel yourself for halfway through the day?
Remember when you didn’t have to sneak online YouTube lessons on how to convincingly fake an orgasm?
Remember when you didn’t have to do the math on exactly how many drinks to have and when to have them in order to attain that perfect state of semi-drunkenness so as to delay orgasm long enough to have a bat’s chance in hell of maybe actually bringing your partner to orgasm for once yet still be able to gather enough blood in your member to successfully smash it between those two awful ham hocks without the whole effort resembling someone holding an unwilling and possibly unconscious slug in a stranglehold and trying to force it into a misshapen and battered keyhole?
Divorce provides all the emotional anguish necessary for the desperate, bestial intercourse that thanks to your nuptial blunder you’ll otherwise never have again. The confusion of why you are doing what you are doing combined with the fire-and-ice alchemy of overwhelming sadness and blind fury provide the perfect cortisol rush for an unforgettable night. (If a forgettable night is preferred, simply dose yourself with ketamine.)
These simple tips, in conjunction with fathomless oceans of denial, can help you to breathe life back into the shriveled, reluctant husk of your sad little marriage.
But like any tragic mistake, remember that no matter how much you rationalize, sugarcoat, and whitewash it, you will still have to suffer the crushing, inescapable consequences of your pitiful idealism one way or another for the rest of your meaningless life.
Jamnit Frainkle is a licensed marriage counselor and an amateur taxidermist. She offers family therapy, romantic advice, and deceased-pet-stuffing services to pathetic losers in southern Utah at discount prices.
Editor’s Note: This piece is satire. Your marriage is doomed no matter what you do.
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