A recent article from Men’s Health lays out 16 ways a guy can save his relationship with his lady, most of which are remarkably idiotic. While I agree that talking to your girlfriend rather than you best buddy about your relationship (#8) is probably a good idea, I’m worried that the other 15 suggestions are just leading men down long, lonely roads of cold shoulders and sexless nights. After the jump, a few of the so-called relationship-savers that sound especially destructive. 

After liveblogging four hours of “The Bachelor” over the last two days, it’s no wonder I cannot get Poo-Poo Bach (as he was renamed last night), Sloppy Seconds (aka Molly), and Melissa out of my mind. As a result, it inspired this week’s Thoughts From Guys On Our IM topic, specifically breakups, and how much effort a couple should put in to saving a relationship before calling it quits. As I wrote about yesterday, “The Bachelor” hit a little close to home for me (not in a crying way, just in a “oh, I can relate to that” way), as I felt like in my breakup, I was given the option of trying to save what my fiance and I had. But how do guys feel about how much time and effort they should put into trying to make things work? Or are they more likely to throw in the towel as soon as the going gets rough? Between yesterday and today, I IM’d them to find out.

Over at Tracie Egan’s blog One D At A Time, she writes about a recent fight she had with her fiance, in which she was left so enraged (and convinced that they were through) that she put his electric guitar in her bathtub and proceeded to pee on it over the course of a day. Oh, and she had her period too, “so it was extra destructive and stinky. The guitar, of course, is ruined.”

This anecdote is buried within a larger post about the Rihanna/Chris Brown scandal and she tells it as a way of conveying what it’s like to be both the offender and the offendee. And while the context of the post is sad—the image of Rihanna post-beating is at the bottom—this particular nugget made me almost wet myself. Haven’t we all done something out of control to the one we love/like in a crazy rage? I have. Years ago, when I was drunk and out on the town, the guy I loved (loved, like, madly) told me he had a new girlfriend—in a rage (he had waited to tell me this information until after I had taken an eight hour bus ride down to visit him in D.C.) I kind of, sort of, maybe shoved him into oncoming traffic. He didn’t get hurt at all, thank god, and somehow has forgiven me. We’re even friends! What’s the nuttiest thing you’ve ever done when you’ve been pissed at a significant other?

Last night, our own “Mind of Man” columnist was trying to tell me that couples moving in together was the kiss of death for their relationship. I think he’s crazy—always, always, always move in together before you commit to marriage, trust me!—but it did get me thinking about what some real kiss of death moments are for couples. Check out “15 Signs You’re Headed For Bed Death”, after the jump. Just don’t be mad at us if you decide to dump your boyfriend as a result.

I remember the end with a daunting visual and emotional clarity that is sometimes even accompanied by a distinctly palpable nausea. We were lying in bed one overcast afternoon, the bed we’d shared for years, the bed that had actually lived against a different wall when we first met, the bed with the creaky mattress that necessitated a trip to Sleepy’s, whereas there was no store where we could purchase a salve for our dying relationship. Annihilated by that particular form of fatigue that results from an exhausted argument for which there is no solution, we drowsed in and out of sleep. At one point I felt that very bed lift, as if suspended by an unseen platform, and to my left I could see a coursing, churning brook, and to my right, a dried up riverbed. As I caught myself falling to that side I jolted awake, felt him sleeping next to me, and tried to insinuate myself beneath his heavy arm. He too awoke with a start, and then rolled over to turn away from me. All the glassy looks, the distant conversations and the poison tongued exchanges suddenly seemed inconsequential compared to this very concrete action, proof that it was indeed over.

From washin’ up to makeup, every lady takes her time in the bathroom. And while we at The Frisky think Brenda Dickson’s two-hour per day regimen seems crazy, a woman in Kansas has topped the soap opera diva with two years!  Although she wasn’t exactly trying to be glamorous with her sweatpants around her knees and all her meals being brought to her, the 35-year-old simply refused to leave her boyfriend’s bathroom. Eventually, her skin grew around the toilet seat and it took a crowbar to set her free.  “She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body,” Ness County Sheriff, Brian Whipple, said. “It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself.” While we try to block that mental picture out of our heads, the woman is finally receiving medical treatment. She had initially made a stink when her boyfriend decided to call for help, but we’re sure he did the right thing for his #1 who was treating herself like #2. [Earthlink]