Confounding

Confounding is a way of saying that two things are connected in a confusing way. Imagine you have two friends, Jack and Jill. Jill always wears bright yellow clothes, and Jack always has on dark blue ones. Every time you see them together, they are wearing these colors. It might look like Jack and Jill's clothes have something to do with each other, like one makes the other one happen. But the truth is that Jack and Jill just like the colors they wear, and it's just a coincidence that they always wear them together. The relationship between their clothes is confusing, and that is confounding.