Crack Me Up

But a sense of humor hardly solves all problems of the heart, cautions Rod Martin, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario. On the contrary, humor in relationships can cut both ways. Funny people, like babes and hunks, seem more attractive at first. Over time, though, the thrill wears off. Besides, relying on jokes to work through deep relationship dynamics can be dangerous: Humor can pack a nasty punch.

Humor As A Tool

"Humor is a tool like any other," says Robert L. Weiss, a psychologist at the University of Oregon who studies humor in relationships. "People use humor in lots of different ways, including some negative ones. It's not just one monolithic thing." Almost every sweet, supportive way of using it has an evil twin; an aggressive, selfish or manipulative version. And like those teasing comments in the workplace that can just as easily feel like flattery or an attack, the two sides of humor are so intimately intertwined, it almost isn't funny.

We've probably all had the experience of a partner who makes hostile quips about our least favorite qualities—our klutziness, shyness, love handles. Joking and goofing undermine intimacy in subtler ways as well. If your partner makes a joke to change the subject whenever you bring up finances, you might not even notice that he's trying to be funny. You'll just wonder why the two of you never seem to talk about the important things you disagree about.

A joke's basic structure—in which you say one thing and mean another—is exactly what makes it such a useful tool in human relationships. "Humor is inherently ambiguous. That's how it works. You're saying more than one thing, and it's never clear exactly what the message is," says Martin. It allows us to put out ideas in a tentative way, and change them if they're not well received. It's a flexible communication strategy, a way of exploring the conversational terrain.

Elizabeth Gifford, a physician, used that strategy to float the idea of marriage mere weeks after she and her boyfriend began dating. She knew as soon as they started going out that he was "the one," she says, and she wanted to find out whether he was thinking along the same lines—without freaking him out. "Honey, should we have the wedding in Birmingham or Brooklyn?" she asked. He played along with the joke, signaling that he was open to discussing marriage. If he'd reacted badly, she could have taken it back easily: "Scared you there, didn't I?"

Humor can bring lovers together, which is probably one of its clearest benefits. Howard Markman, a psychologist who works with couples in Colorado, likes to start his "Love Your Relationship" retreats with a joke or funny video. "When people are laughing together, they feel more positive toward each other. They're more likely to give each other the benefit of the doubt," he says. This may be the most unambiguously positive use of humor. It's hard to see a downside, except maybe annoying your friends with lovey-dovey in-jokes.

Sometimes a well-timed joke can defuse a tense situation before it escalates. Dianne Spoto, a teacher and horse trainer in the New York Catskills, recalls a particularly heated argument with her husband, Franco. Dianne, who is much smaller than he is, ran up to him and licked his nose, stopping the fight dead in its tracks.

Humor also can change the mood or introduce another point of view. "When I was in a state of yearlong depression and feeling like the world was wiping its feet on me daily, my boyfriend used to look at me very seriously and say, 'Nobody likes you.' I found it hysterical," says Lizzie Skurnick, a blogger in Baltimore. By exaggerating her dismal view of the world, her boyfriend gently let her know that he thought it unrealistic, and helped her get a bit of perspective on her depression.

But there's a fine line between calming a partner down and blowing him or her off. When a couple falls into a pattern of demand and withdrawal, says Weiss, one partner—often the man—will deploy a joke to avoid addressing problems or to let his partner know he's not going to deal with her demands. A woman reminds her partner to do the laundry, and he hums the NFL theme, as if to say, "I have a football game to watch. No way I'm doing laundry now." The joke is funny the first time, but it gets old fast, points out Amy Bippus, a professor of communications studies at California State University in Long Beach.

Unfunny jokes became a recurring problem for Sally Eckhoff, a painter in Saratoga Springs, New York. "I finally convinced my husband that I needed some help, goddamn it—I can't do everything alone," she says. "So once in a while, he'd hold the point of my elbow and steer me with it. And he'd say, 'I'm helping you!'" The couple are now divorcing.