Too much information.

How much do you share with your partner? Are you the couple in the movie? Earnestly chatting, while one of you sits on the toilet reaching for the roll, the other just metres away, brushes their teeth at the sink? At a recent Film Festival a Director explained that scenes like these are written to show the “intimacy” in the relationship, to make the characters partnership believable. I actually snorted out loud when he said it. If G sat down on the loo and started getting busy while I was brushing my teeth, there wouldn’t be ANY intimacy and that toothbrush would be going straight in the bin!

Like most couples G and I were very well behaved for the first few months of our relationship, no nose picking, no farting, no magazines or newspapers in the toilet. I always find it intriguing that men can stifle their farting within the first few months of any new relationship. “Do you know how much pain I was in?” a past boyfriend told me after his talent for farting at 5 minute intervals became a part of our daily routine.

We’d been married for about a year when G said “I’ve never heard you fart?” and just a little bit too quickly I answered “I don’t”.

I was kind of telling the truth. I didn’t fart. In front of him.  In fact, I didn’t do any of those things in front of him, the toilet door was not only closed but locked, if he happened to walk past I stopped everything I was doing until I knew he was out of earshot.

Why? I guess I had this belief that some things needed to be kept private, that I would be less of a sex goddess if he could picture me sitting on the loo or squeezing a pimple. Maybe it was growing up without brothers, there were no fart jokes in our house. Although, my father was the master of sneaky farting, whenever that familiar smell made it’s way across the room he’d immediately blame the dog and make it leave the room. Until the day he shouted at the dog and it wasn’t there.

Obviously I couldn’t keep up the no fart facade. Something was going to trip me up and that something came in the form of my first pregnancy.

If you haven’t shared all bodily functions with your partner yet, try getting pregnant, it’s a great icebreaker for vomiting, fainting, farting, indigestion and in the final stages you can enjoy a game of “spot the hemorrhoid.”

I spent a lot of my first pregnancy in Jakarta and was struck down with the usual Indonesian tummy bugs. I had no choice but to share it with G.  We were living in a hotel room and the smell of my duty free Chanel number 5 mixed in with Diarrhea number 2 still haunts me to this day.

By the time I made it to my due date I was the size of a small elephant, people had to rearrange their furniture when I entered the room. When it was time for the birth, G got to see all of me, inside and out. The labour started, it stopped. When the suggestion of sex was made by the obstetrician I could see G looking at me, not with a thought of lust, but more with a logistical “HOW?”

Hemorrhoids arrived with a vengeance. “Umm, there’s something coming out of your bottom” G gently told me one day. We’d hit rock bottom, literally.

When I thought it was all over and our first little traveler was born, G watched the nurse remove the pad that was the size of a small country from under me. There wasn’t much more I could share. When I told my girlfriend in horror she laughed and told me she shared the same experience with her husband (who is a farmer). Being a practical guy, he took one look at the pad and asked the nurse where they got them, he thought they looked handy for changing the oil on the tractor. I giggled and then realized I was the tractor in this scenario.

Is there ever a case of too much information in a partnership? How much can you see before it changes how you feel?

A few years ago I was getting ready for bed and was half undressed when one of the little travelers woke and called for me. As I picked him up out of his bed he promptly threw up all over me. Not just a little chuck, it was one of those insane just keeps coming projectile vomits. As I stood in my knickers and bra looking completely shell shocked and dripping in vomit G walked in to the room. “Well helloooooooooo there” he said as if we’d just met in a bar.

It was as if he couldn’t see the vomit or the baby, all he saw was a wife, her knickers and bra and an opportunity. I think it was then that I realized I could be wearing tracky dacks and a stained t-shirt and G would always be “up for it”. Sure, he’d prefer the lace knickers swinging from a chandelier option but like most blokes he was happy with whatever was on offer.

12 years and 4 little travelers later and I still keep the bathroom door locked, there will never be simultaneous tooth brushing and toilet going. I’ve definitely relaxed a little as has our beagle, I have to banish her from the room regularly.

How about you? How much do you share and have you reached a point of too much information?

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Comments

  1. I can’t tell you how much I just laughed out loud at this post. How funny….a small island pad! haha I’m with you though, no toilet functions in the same room as partner, even after 10 years. But like you, he has seen me inside and out, something I’m still not able to watch on DVD (thanks mum for filming the birth) he saw it first hand and I still grimace at how it must have changed his perspective of woman:) Great post and thanks for the laugh xx

  2. I came from a family where the toilet door was shut no matter what we were doing in there. My husband has always been pretty relaxed with all bodily functions and was bewildered when I shut the bathroom after the first time we did ‘it’ – “We just had sex but you won’t wee in front of me?!” I soon relaxed on the #1’s but #2’s have always been private. I don’t want to see/hear/know!

    When I had my daughters (both via caesarean) he was banned form looking over the screen both times, no way did I want him peering into my abdomen! Ick. but he did help the nurses change my pads. It mortifies me to this day but he sees it as a totally natural process and nothing to be squeamish about.

    I wish i could be as cool about these things as him, but i’m a bit of a prude still.

  3. Oh, it’s all out there after bairns, isn’t it!? Not to mention sickness. But we have a ‘what goes on in Vegas’ policy and I would NEVER intentionally go to the loo in front of my man. I wouldn’t do any of that stuff. We’re a bit private like that. Farts are fair game though!! x

  4. How do all men manage to keep those farts in during the first few courting months?

    Thankfully I’ve never had the chance to play ‘spot the haemorrhoid’ (yet) but I think he’s witnessed most bodily functions and hasn’t batted an eye (much).

    Childbirth really does put paid to any scrap of dignity you ever possessed.

  5. We are completely disgusting. Alright, I am. Husband is absolutely closed door to the point where I do not believe the kids have ever witnessed him going beyond a number 1 (trying to be delicate, what is the point!)… I on the other hand couldn’t care less. 4 births have cured me of what little dignity I had to begin with. We both enjoy tormenting each other with a killer fart although the stealth (silent) fart brings particular pleasure.
    Too much information!!
    Michelle

  6. What a great post! so many laughs. I’ve only quite recently started to relax the closed door policy, but only for #1s. But usually I will close the door. His #2s I steer well clear of, for several hours afterwards, if I can 😉 The thought of brushing my teeth through that makes me gag.

    Yep, childbirth ruined all sense of dignity, but I’m hoping he forgets the view just like we forget the pain??

  7. Ahhh…we have conversations when someone is in the bathroom, the shower, everything. Three kids, surgeries, illnesses, there’s NOTHING left to hide. Intimacy? Or laziness? Not sure…

  8. Thank God men don’t fart until after the first months, which means the only one I have to worry about is mine. He makes up for all the others in the world and is totally incapable of bending without letting loose a fart. I know the rest of them fart, just not around me. One husband and four dogs is all I can take. There has been no child bearing, but after 33 years together we’ve somehow managed to cross all the grossest boundaries anyway. I try to draw the line at #2s, but when you both have the flu at the same time, things just get out of control.

  9. Haha… what a great post. I am more and more intrigued by your blog with every read. You always manage to come up with interesting, original reads every time:-)
    We are still quite discreet with each other. Even after 11 years, 3 kids. Or should I say hubby is discreet. I am quite open in bathroom, just how I was brought up. I dont think my childhood home has ever had a lock on the bathroom door or toilet door. (Yes – that has brought many funny incidents for visitors) but hubby has always been closed! After we’d first met and a few months into the relationship, the bathroom door was locked – I cried. I was in shock (and young and naive) and couldnt beleive he would lock ME out. I have since overcome this…and dont care either way. And understand someone may need /want their privacy. )I – like you – after reading your toilet trip with littlies incident – can do everything with kids around – its just easier than having them crying at the locked door. And yes, need some good ‘look away’ phrases….ooooo whats up there on that shelf….BUT funnily enough, I will never fart in front of anyone. (And I expect the same from hubby)
    I dont think they’re funny and dont like them lingering…..

  10. I look forward to following you 🙂 Check out my site I am doing a giveaway soon 🙂

  11. My partner has strict rules about going to the bathroom in front of each other – although i would probably do onesies in front of him…definitely not twosies.

  12. You are hilarious! My hubby is a doctor so I guess nothing is off limits to him (regularly sticks his [hopefully gloved] finger up people’s bums etc. – all in the name of work, I should add!)However, I have never even peed in front of him, and vice versa. I think there needs to be a little mystery left in the relationship after 20+ years. Had 3 caesareans, which may have helped maintain the mystique, too.

  13. Too funny..My hubby laughs at me because I have always turned on the water full force when #2 is going to be too noisy. Yet I asked him to check my hemorrhoid a few weeks ago since it had been so long since I had one. He laughed and made fun of me for the water thing but I can show him that. I said it’s either you since you’re a DR. or I go show it to some stranger.

  14. You had me rolling on the floor! We are very open in our relationship, but I draw the line at the tooth brushing think, actually Mr. Sunday has his own bathroom he has to use for that function. LOL

  15. Oh God I laughed at this. And winced. I think I winced just as much, only because when it comes to bodily functions I am intensely private. I don’t have a partner, but my family growing up were those annoying farm types who would leave the bathroom door open (you couldn’t see in there but still, heavens people, have some bloody decorum).

    I would be much happier if everyone I met believed wholeheartedly that I did not even have a bottom.

    Being pregnant? So not for me 😛

  16. Oh, we have the “door open” in our house – well, my husband does, but not me. Maybe that’s why we don’t have sex? (giggling) x

  17. Haha, you are hilarious.

    I still remember Phil and I staying at a hotel very early on in our relationship.

    He went out on the balcony and I was inside doing something. I then followed him out. Unbeknownst to me, he’d gone out there for a fart. I walked straight into it, but being in those early delicate stages, neither of us acknowledged it.

    Ahh, those days are such a distant memory. Now between cupcake farts and dutch ovens, farting has become a sport in our household..

    xx

  18. Loved this! And yep, it all changed with kids for me too. Thought I was doing well keeping hub up my head end through first ten hours of labour with number 1. That all went out the window when my midwive handed him a rubber glove with a crochet hook attached and invited him to “reach in and break her waters”. Where’s the romance? He didn’t even take me out for dinner first!

  19. Hilarious! I answered with the same response “I don’t fart” (which I have to say I think he sadly believed for s period of time) probably for the first 4 years! Now it’s just not feasible – but at least you get laughs out of it! Was just shown your blog through Raine and Sage and looking forward to following you through 2011! Am an expat wife myself so great to hear your stories! Happy new year.

  20. I’m laughing so hard tears are sliding down my face and my sides hurt. You know you’ve struck a comedic nerve when your readers identify. Yep, sounds like you’re totally describing my experience, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent . . . in this case, us non-farters.

  21. Oh, and my brother and his ex-wife NEVER farted in front of each other. 7 Years. Never. Can you tell why they are ex’s?

  22. So funny! Love the image of Hubby thinking he’s in with a chance with an underwear clad wife covered in vomit.

    My Hubby is perhaps the loudest and proudest farter of them all. Even after 19 years I am disgusted a little. But he looks so proud, it’s hard to stay disgusted for long.

    The romance well and truly left by the time our first child was born. Fertility treatment and internal ultra sounds seemed bad enough, but when a midwife tells your hubby to look at the baby’s head coming out… and then describes the scene laid out before him it’s all over.

  23. The only way they could get away with that little toothbrushing/toilet scene is that they knew we didn’t have smellamovies! I agree…modesty goes out the window with the advent of pregnancy and beyond…so after five kids I think the only thing off limits is no. 2’s. This whole theme though…keeps me from divorcing him every so often…’cos I couldn’t imagine going through all this familiarisation all over again!!

  24. I don’t think there are many people who ‘let it all hang out’ more than me. My two daughters and I are bad farters and they always make a joke of it and pretend to call the fire brigade and scream: “This is a fart emergency! There’s a toxic cloud over Emma K’s house. Come right now!” and then they make nee naw noises and run in and squirt the air freshener like firemen. Next there is the question of tampons yes I put them in in front of the girls or husband. I should probably stop there… Yes I am a sex goddess…but a very stinky sex goddess!

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  26. You are so funny! Oh my goodness. I’m with you all the way, I’m a toilet door locker. Just because we share our lives with our partners it doesn’t mean we have to share EVERYTHING! And like you, having had quite a few kids, my hubbie has seen it all. And still goes back for more. Oh, life is funny isn’t it? Thanks for this excellent post xo

  27. With my first husband I kept quite a lot private, even with four kids. It was easy, he was in the Army, so away a lot.
    With my second husband, nothing was private. Although we did close the bathroom door to poo, the place is so small, the splashes were still heard.

  28. Door locking has nothing to do with being prudish and everthing to do with having a few minutes on my own. 9 times out of ten there is usually someone outside the door making some kind of demand.

  29. Oh dear…I try to avoid sharing any of *those* moments with family members, esp my husband! Sadly our boys are far too relaxed and feel no urge to close the door when using the toilet. I lock myself in the toilet to get some P&Q though.

  30. I am loving reading your blog! Thanks for writing it! I live in a house share at the moment and although bodily functions are mainly a private thing, kept behind locked doors, I do often find myself being interupted by my housemate John with a shout of, ‘Are you naked? Can I come in?’ – the first time I proper panicked (even though I knew I was dressed) but now it’s just a way of life!

    On a different note – I am looking to move to Qatar (I am a teacher) and I would really appreciate you giving me an insite into what life is like there as it is a country that I have not previously visited. I am single and the teaching job that I am looking at is at a school in a compound about 30mins north of Doha. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

  31. I cannot even remotely relate to this post. I can’t remember the last time I used a bathroom alone. There’s always either a bulldog, one of our three cats, my 8 year old, or my husband in the bathroom looking for something, looking to keep me company, or standing in the doorway continuing a pre-pee conversation. The only time the door is closed is when we have company – friends, grandparents, cousins, etc.

    My husband did hold it in for the first few weeks of our relationship, but we’d known each other as friends for several years before that, so I knew he farted. I thought it was really bizarre that he stopped when we began dating. About a month after our first date, we were having a cozy little after hours picnic in his grandmother’s antique store when he farted in front of me for the first time since we began dating. I was so glad because it meant I wouldn’t have to hold it in anymore! =D

    I asked him to marry me a week later at a tattoo party and the day after that he was hospitalized and had his gall bladder removed (unrelated to the tattoo). Reality hit then, and he and I had to get over the early days’ squeamishness so I could take care of him, change his dressings, help him to the bathroom, etc. There’s no going back after that!

  32. Hehehee……you do come up with the funniest topics. The first month into our marriage a gecko found it’s was into the washroom, so every-time I took a pee I had the techie stand outside the open door. For pooping I had to be brave, it was a little too much to share with my bodyguard.

  33. Oh this blog post is pure gold! I love this and can so relate. Hubby and I have a closed door policy because we want to keep some mystery! Otherwise, there is nothing else. He’s been there during childbirth and sleepless nights, and we’ve both had vomiting/diarrohea at some stage. But I laughed the most at your husband’s response to you in your bra and knickers. That’s my husband down to a tee. I think it’s great after all this time they still dig us, vomit and all 😉 xx

  34. I went to the ER twice during my pregnancy for the dreaded hems and then pushed for over three hours to get my almost ten pound baby out. I’ll let you imagine the damage. My husband saw it all and saw me recover with my herbal “motherlove bottom balm” and sitz baths. Recently, my husband experienced his first ever bout and wouldn’t you know it, he just loved using the leftover motherlove balm. Ah, the romance.

  35. Hilarious post!! I love this blog, I am now a follower.

    My husband is very relaxed and open about everything so I guess I should be as well, but some things I still try to do privately! I have no idea why.

  36. You are one very very funny lady. Some things are still sacred in our house – but I can totally relate to everything you have written in this post. Thanks for making me laugh!

  37. Love the post. I agree with you, some things need to be kept private. My husband always says “bless you” if he hears me fart which usually causes a giggle.

  38. I cannot even remotely relate to this post. I can’t remember the last time I used a bathroom alone. There’s always either a bulldog, one of our three cats, my 8 year old, or my husband in the bathroom looking for something, looking to keep me company, or standing in the doorway continuing a pre-pee conversation. The only time the door is closed is when we have company – friends, grandparents, cousins, etc.

    My husband did hold it in for the first few weeks of our relationship, but we’d known each other as friends for several years before that, so I knew he farted. I thought it was really bizarre that he stopped when we began dating. About a month after our first date, we were having a cozy little after hours picnic in his grandmother’s antique store when he farted in front of me for the first time since we began dating. I was so glad because it meant I wouldn’t have to hold it in anymore! =D

    I asked him to marry me a week later at a tattoo party and the day after that he was hospitalized and had his gall bladder removed (unrelated to the tattoo). Reality hit then, and he and I had to get over the early days’ squeamishness so I could take care of him, change his dressings, help him to the bathroom, etc. There’s no going back after that!

  39. You are so funny! Oh my goodness. I’m with you all the way, I’m a toilet door locker. Just because we share our lives with our partners it doesn’t mean we have to share EVERYTHING! And like you, having had quite a few kids, my hubbie has seen it all. And still goes back for more. Oh, life is funny isn’t it? Thanks for this excellent post xo

  40. Too funny..My hubby laughs at me because I have always turned on the water full force when #2 is going to be too noisy. Yet I asked him to check my hemorrhoid a few weeks ago since it had been so long since I had one. He laughed and made fun of me for the water thing but I can show him that. I said it’s either you since you’re a DR. or I go show it to some stranger.

  41. I don’t think there are many people who ‘let it all hang out’ more than me. My two daughters and I are bad farters and they always make a joke of it and pretend to call the fire brigade and scream: “This is a fart emergency! There’s a toxic cloud over Emma K’s house. Come right now!” and then they make nee naw noises and run in and squirt the air freshener like firemen. Next there is the question of tampons yes I put them in in front of the girls or husband. I should probably stop there… Yes I am a sex goddess…but a very stinky sex goddess!

  42. What a great post! so many laughs. I’ve only quite recently started to relax the closed door policy, but only for #1s. But usually I will close the door. His #2s I steer well clear of, for several hours afterwards, if I can 😉 The thought of brushing my teeth through that makes me gag.

    Yep, childbirth ruined all sense of dignity, but I’m hoping he forgets the view just like we forget the pain??

  43. I came from a family where the toilet door was shut no matter what we were doing in there. My husband has always been pretty relaxed with all bodily functions and was bewildered when I shut the bathroom after the first time we did ‘it’ – “We just had sex but you won’t wee in front of me?!” I soon relaxed on the #1’s but #2’s have always been private. I don’t want to see/hear/know!

    When I had my daughters (both via caesarean) he was banned form looking over the screen both times, no way did I want him peering into my abdomen! Ick. but he did help the nurses change my pads. It mortifies me to this day but he sees it as a totally natural process and nothing to be squeamish about.

    I wish i could be as cool about these things as him, but i’m a bit of a prude still.

  44. Ha, I laughed at G’s reaction to you in the vomit room! We have the open door policy in the bathroom here, though its not always one in all in! We have taken to closing the door for the last few months as we’ve had houseguests but I’m sure as soon as they go it will be back to the usual. As for the farts – his are SBDs and will follow him around the house like a fog, so he does not get away with it, mine on the other hand are raucous, the kids are terrible deniers – and that is enough on that!!

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