Share Some Laughter – Part 2

I remember reading something interesting in a science fiction book a number of years ago. The gist of the story was that a man was returned to the world, who had grown up on another world, amongst aliens. Because of this, he had trouble understanding the most basic human actions and reactions. One of the things he struggled with was understanding laughter.

What I really remember about that story was the way he explained laughter when he finally understood it. He said that people didn’t laugh because things were funny, as everyone had explained to him; people laughed because it hurt, and they were laughing to make it stop hurt.

If you think about it a minute, much of what we laugh at are things that hurt. A comic slips on a banana peel, and we laugh as he falls; a joke that talks about how foolish someone is in a particular situation; a picture of a car that someone has driven off the dock into a boat. They are all painful situations, ether physically or emotionally.

All of us pass trough painful situations, it’s part of life. How we face those situations says a lot about us, and how we help others face them says even more. We can either help them though those situations, lightening their load, or we can become part of the problem, making their load all that much harder to bear.

One of the ways we can help our wives through a difficult situation is to find the humor in that situation and help her see it. Granted, she may not be in the mood to laugh at that exact moment, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t need to laugh. In fact, laughter is one of the best stress relievers there is. By helping her laugh in the midst of that difficult situation, we can help her not only get through it, but overcome it.

How do you find humor in a situation? One way is to talk about how you could explain it to another person. Take a situation where your mother-in-law is a world class champion worrier. If you can help your wife see what it would be like to explain that situation, after the fact, to her mother, it could bring some humor into it. Or, how about trying to see the ridiculousness of your comedy of errors, as if you were watching it in a movie. If you can see it that way, you suddenly see the humor of it. More importantly, you can help your wife see it that way.

It’s always easier to make it through a situation if you can find a way to laugh your way through it. Not only will you be free of the stress, but you will be better able to make good decisions. Ultimately, that will help your relationship with your wife, your family and your life.