My wife of almost 20 years and I went to our pastor at the time for marriage counseling.  I remember expecting him to lay down a lot of “do this” and “don’t do that”.  However, his counsel to us was fairly straightforward.

He told us all the things that you would expect a pastor to tell 20 somethings who have stars in their eyes as they approach marriage:

• Keep the lines of communication open.
• Learn to compromise.
• It will be harder than you think.
• Work on being friends.

He added something that I had not expected to hear from him – keep your sense of humor.  I couldn’t imagine why a sense of humor would be so important.  It paled in comparison to the other “weightier” matters of keeping a marriage together, or so I thought.

It turns out that our ability to laugh at ourselves has been instrumental in keeping my wife and I together.  Without our sense of humor, it would have been easy to stay offended at each other as a result of taking ourselves to seriously. 

Laughter has been like a pressure-release valve.  Whenever conflict gets too serious, we look for a way to laugh so that anger, resentment, and bitterness do not have an opportunity to build up and put pressure on us. 

Here’s an article by Dr. Tina Tessina in which she describes the positive impact that laughter has had in her marriage – It’s A Dirty Job.

Why not look for more ways for you and your wife to laugh within your marriage?