Marriage Requires a Sense of Humor

The Ethical Will of Donald Armstrong, Part 15

To: the couple that dares to accept the challenge of married life:

As you have no doubt already realized, many people who love and care for you will be eager to share what they believe to be the secret for a happy marriage. Some will speak of love, and others may stress faith. A few, with years of marital experience, will talk about tolerance and forgiveness. All of these are, of course, important.

But, perhaps, the most vital of all — for it sustains all the above — is a shared sense of humor. Research suggests that couples that laugh together have a significantly higher chance of staying together — so much so that some experts claim that shared humor is the most important predictor of longterm happiness for a married couple. As Victor Borge, the Danish-American comedian and musician, famously remarked,“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”

Now let me emphasize the modifier in the above paragraph. The benefit of a healthy sense of humor only comes into play when it is shared. If you laugh uproariously at onscreen pratfalls, but your spouse only cracks a smile at subtle displays of irony, humor may not be one of the ties that bind — and may even be a source of chronic irritation or disappointment. Fortunately, with a…