Laughter Helps Lighten the Load : Marital Tension Can be Tamed by Teasing, but Timing Is Important, Experts Say

You’re about to leave for a party in a casual but elegant outfit--a testimony to your sophistication and good taste. Then your husband, whose total lack of style is often mistaken for eccentricity, appears in what you not-so-affectionately call his “uniform”--the same khaki slacks and checkered shirt he’s had on for the past five days. You say:

1) “Oh my God, you’re not wearing that again!”

2) “Why don’t we just go to a movie?”

3) “Nice outfit. It’s so . . . predictable.”

Your wife has just informed you that she’s invited guests for dinner. It has somehow slipped her mind that this is that sacred night of the week when all free men are allowed to sit in front of the tube with a TV tray and watch football during dinner hour. Besides, you have a lot of money--and emotion--riding on this game. You say:

1) “On a Monday night? How could you do this to me?!”

2) “Fine, honey, hope you have a good time.”

3) “That’s OK as long as we eat early . . . say 3 p.m.?”

It would not be surprising if the couples in these scenarios ended up exchanging verbal blows--or not speaking at all. The best response, of course, is the one most likely to get a laugh. But it’s hard to be witty when you’re angry, irritated--or determined to prove you’re right.

If you could just take a step back when you find yourself on the brink of warfare and lighten your love life with laughter, it would be easier to keep conflicts in perspective, therapists say.

W.C. Fields understood that humor can be found even in the darkest moments of a relationship. “I never saw anything funny that wasn’t terrible,” he quipped. “If it causes pain, it’s funny; if it doesn’t, it isn’t.”

Linda Moss, a clinical psychologist who practices in Orange and moonlights as a stand-up comedian, says couples tend to take themselves too seriously when they’re under stress.

“Any serious topic can be changed into comedy,” she says. “I teach clients to stop after they’ve been fighting for a bit, look at what’s going on and ask, ‘What’s all this intensity about?’ People come in very serious and angry. Humor forces them to look at themselves in a whole new perspective.”

Moss uses humor to lighten up therapy sessions in the same way she teaches couples to use it--carefully. “I don’t poke fun until they know I’m on their side,” she explains.

The humor couples share should be gentle and loving--not sarcastic or demeaning, Moss stresses.

And timing is as crucial to couples as it is to stand-up comedians. An ill-timed injection of humor may backfire. Cautions Laguna Beach psychotherapist Ruth Luban: “Humor in a relationship is a delicate issue. You don’t want someone to interpret it as ridicule.”

No one knows the importance of timing better than Jim Hope, a single Tustin resident who makes his living as a stand-up comedian. Although he says humor can be a barrier to intimacy if it’s overdone, his ability to make people laugh--especially with self-deprecating jokes--has been an asset in his relationships.

He explains: “Comics are more aware of their neuroses than most people. They’re always going through therapy on themselves, so they’re tuned in to what they are doing. That’s how they get their material. So they tend to recognize when they’re doing something funny--or when their mate is. Then they can make a joke out of it and decrease the tension.”

Daniel Murphy of Fullerton is no stand-up comic, but he enjoys doing celebrity impersonations and is likely to lapse into a spontaneous performance when his girlfriend needs cheering up.

“Making a little joke or doing something silly or off the wall will help ease tension in any situation,” says Murphy.

However, he cautions: “You should know how to regulate humor. There is a time to put humor aside and open your heart to compassion, understanding and love.”

Julie Weber of Laguna Beach says she’d have no interest in a man who couldn’t share her humor, which she says is vital to keeping her 24-year marriage alive.

“I can always count on making my husband laugh,” she says. “If I can’t, then I know he’s really troubled.”

She sees good-natured teasing as a way married people flirt with each other. “It’s a way of showing the other person recognition, and I find it delightful,” she says.

Weber has learned to use humor to keep small irritations from escalating into arguments. For example, once when she and husband Michael were both up-tight as they were about to start a vacation, she asked him: “Should we have our fight now or wait until we get in the car?”

She also has used humor to resolve more serious conflicts. When her children were growing up and she thought her husband was being too strict or protective, she would role play, begging him to let her spend the night with a friend, for example, to help him understand their kids’ point of view.

“It helped him get out of himself and see things in another way,” she explains.

Sometimes, she’ll strike a pose that mimics him to help break the tension after an argument. “That always makes him laugh because it looks so absurd on me,” she says.

Ellis Wayne, a Newport Beach psychologist, says exaggeration is one of the most effective ways of bringing humor into a relationship.

If you’re trying to pack for a trip and you find your mate has forgotten to include your socks in the laundry, don’t say: “Why the hell didn’t you wash my socks?”

Try something more outrageous, like: “You obviously hate me and you’re doing this to drive me insane, right?”

With the latter response, you’re much more likely to avoid a silly argument--and get your socks washed, Wayne says.

If you have trouble tapping your sense of humor in a tense situation, it may be because you’re too “self-involved,” Wayne notes.

“You have to step outside yourself for a moment and see the ridiculousness of a situation,” he explains. “You can’t do that if you’re too wrapped up in your own frustration and anger.”

Sue Kirby, a motivational speaker who is writing a book to help women see the humor in their relationships with men, says she has discovered at home and on the podium that people are more receptive to a serious message if it is delivered with humor.

In a marriage, she says, “usually one responds to it and one dishes it out.”

She’s the one who dishes it out in her marriage, but the El Toro resident knows what it’s like to lose her sense of humor because she wallowed in misery after the breakup of her first marriage.

Getting her sense of humor back as she worked through her pain made her realize the importance of laughter to her emotional equilibrium.

But, she says, the fast pace of life in Orange County makes it difficult for people to stay in touch with their sense of humor.

“We’ve stopped talking to each other, listening, being ourselves. We don’t let our hair down,” she observes. “We’re stressed out more than ever, and I think humor is the answer. If it doesn’t come naturally, we have to work on it. We all have it. We have to trust that it’s in there.”