What Makes me Laugh? My Husband.

Photo by Jud Ream

Laughing is the best medicine.

At the risk of being too cheesy, too vomitously sentimental, laughter truly is the best medicine, especially in a marriage.

This morning I was texting my husband, Jud, about this writing prompt and question, what makes me laugh?

“And you just wrote, Jud Jud Jud Jud Jud Jud Jud Jud Jud,” he texted back.

“I will now,” I replied, with a laughing emoji. I literally LOL quite a lot at his texts. (I told you, this might get cheesy.)

Just yesterday my husband and I had to pause our conversation because we were laughing so hard. Twice actually. Laughter has been a saving grace in our marriage. We were laughing about my enthusiastic anticipation of a boxwood hedge I am creating in a front planter.

My husband was laughing because I was just so excited to share in elaborate detail how I will space out the twelve bushes, a gift from a dear friend in landscaping. I was laughing because he was laughing and because sometimes, I can crack myself up. (This is also a great ingredient to staying connected in marriage, the ability to laugh at one’s self.)

Laughing at our differences.

Earlier in the day, before my fervor about my new plants, we were chatting at the dining room table, and once again our conversation devolved into laughter. I was telling Jud about a recent time spent with one of my brothers during which we were both discussing, excitedly exclaiming more accurately, our current ailments and how we were certain they were terminal, him a mole and me a swollen finger.

When I looked at my husband mid-story, we both started chuckling because of his utter bafflement that two people can be so animated, so exuberant about their hypochondria.

Jud, a twenty-five-year fireman, maintains a fairly even response to all that life throws at him. This is valuable in his line of work. My husband is often gobsmacked at how my family and I talk to one another, with such emphasis it makes his head spin. And we have learned to laugh in these moments, enjoying the value of not being wired in the exact same way.

Laughing is a choice.

Years ago a friend once commented that he didn’t know another couple who laughed together as much as we did. I have cherished that observation. It motivates me to keep laughing, especially in life’s harder moments.

One time, in a particularly soul-killing stretch of LA traffic at the tail end of a long road trip, I decided to find a comedy channel on the Pandora streaming app. Knowing my husband and I both enjoy listening to comedians, I thought this would be a helpful solution to our mounting irritation.

I landed on a Jim Gaffigan station that included sets from Kathleen Madigan and John Mulaney, to name just two. Suddenly our time in frustrating gridlock transformed into a great time as we laughed our way through one-mile-an-hour driving.

Laughing is a reminder of the good parts even when things are hard.

Sometimes when we’re done laughing, we look at each other and say, “We just laugh and laugh,” a line we repeat often as if this is all we do in our marriage.

It isn’t. We have had periods of disconnect, sadness, and anger with one another. But it is the ebbs and flows in our marriage that make laughing together even sweeter.

Laughing together might take some work.

For some of us, laughing in a relationship or marriage isn’t a natural experience. Sometimes, we have to seek out common areas of humor. Like my search on Pandora, I intentionally sought out some things we both might find funny. There are definitely places where our humor diverges, something one of us thinks is funny and the other doesn’t.

So, we work to find the common ground. And when we find it, we capitalize on it.

I recently bought tickets to see comedian Brian Regan who is coming to our area in a few months. We have friends with whom we love to laugh so I make sure we have dinner plans with them regularly. We find TV shows to enjoy together, like New Girl or Ted Lasso or 30 Rock, and we watch them on repeat because we know how valuable it is to laugh together.

Laughing together sweetens the air, cleans out the lungs, and strengthens our bond.

I know that when my husband reads this, he will shake his head and laugh. And I’ll probably start laughing too.