Laughter is relationship glue

Laughter is part of how people stay close, not an extra. Three very different people arrive at that idea: humor shared on purpose, especially in hard seasons, helps couples, families and friends carry each other. The sources give lived experience and one comedian's research, though, not controlled studies.

Yakov Smirnoff, the Soviet-born comedian, came to the question when his career and his marriage collapsed together. He wondered why laughter is present at the start of relationships and missing at the end. He polled his audiences, which he calls his laboratory of laughter, and when he asked who would go on a second date with someone who had not made them laugh on the first, nobody applauded. He went on to earn a master's in psychology and a doctorate. His framework comes from how a joke is built: the setup has to meet what the audience cares about before the punchline lands. Relationships work the same way, he argues. Laughter shows up when partners feel their needs are met and fades when they are not. He draws on Dr. Willard Harley's lists of needs, and stresses admiration, being glad about a partner's success instead of competing with it.

Poet Jericho Brown treats laughter as a daily discipline that grew out of surviving shame, rape and HIV. He says: "I set aside time every day for Jericho to laugh. Because that's what keeps me alive." If nothing has made him giggle, he watches The Golden Girls. He practices laughter alongside intimacy, crying and failing without shame, and warns that someone who cannot be vulnerable will never fall in love.

Michael Malice describes laughter as relief, a little vacation from pain. He wants his funeral to be a roast. Visiting North Korea, he was struck by how funny people were, and concluded: "there's nothing more human and universal than laughter and laughter is free." He calls his own a quality family because his mother and grandmother played along with a prank without missing a beat.

All three agree laughter is essential, matters most when things are hard, and can be cultivated. They differ on what it is for. For Smirnoff it is a sign of a relationship's health, so you bring it back by meeting needs, not by telling more jokes. For Brown it is mainly a personal practice. For Malice it is relief and resistance to cynicism. Only Smirnoff speaks directly about couples, so applying the other two to marriage is an inference. They also imply different tastes: Smirnoff favors humor a whole family can share, and Malice defends dark humor.

There are limits. Laughter cannot replace meeting real needs, and rivalry and resentment kill it. Malice got his humor from a father he no longer speaks to. Even Jay Leno scoffed at Smirnoff's doctorate.

What to do with it: schedule time to laugh every day. Treat fading laughter with a partner as a sign that something underneath is not being met. Say your admiration out loud. Go and laugh together. For depression, trauma or a relationship in crisis, it is wise to also get a qualified therapist's or counselor's advice.