Humour and playfulness

It can do either, and the style of humour matters most. Couples describe warm, shared humour, and humour that lifts the mood by laughing at yourself or the situation, as a way to relieve stress and calm a row. Aggressive humour, on the other hand, can undermine satisfaction¹. The same split shows up in dating couples: cheering a partner up helps, while teasing and making fun of them does the opposite².

Sarcasm is the tricky one. Sarcastic speakers can come across as meaner than literal ones, and as meaning to mock or hurt³. Other work suggests sarcasm can also ease tension, so it isn't banned; it just needs care³. What counts is how it lands: humour your partner notices, and that feels like it belongs to you both, is more strongly linked with satisfaction than humour you only meant as a joke⁴.

A few things to try:

• Aim jokes at the situation (the burnt dinner, the missed train) or at yourself, not at your partner.
• Watch how it lands. If a joke doesn't go down well, drop it and check in. It isn't clear yet how to tell when someone is too upset to hear a joke, so if in doubt, leave it.
• Soften, don't swerve. Some couples say light humour helps them soften a criticism or raise a sensitive subject¹. Make sure the point still gets said clearly.
• Talk about patterns at a calm moment, not mid-argument. If a joke keeps landing as a put-down, take that seriously rather than dismissing it as "just joking".

Humour and shared fun go with better relationships, though the research shows a link, not that play causes it. Humour that your partner perceives, and that feels shared, has the strongest link with satisfaction⁴. Couples who laugh together more tend to feel closer to and more supported by each other⁵. It may run both ways, too: couples who already feel close may simply laugh together more⁵.

Couples also describe shared jokes, playful teasing and affectionate humour as things that strengthen closeness and trust¹.

Play isn't only about jokes. Doing something new and exciting together tends to go with better relationship quality, and shared exciting activities are linked with satisfaction, partly because they chase off boredom⁶. That's about novelty rather than humour, but the two often turn up together.

What to try:

• Notice the fun you both enjoy, and make room for it, rather than leaning on humour only one of you finds funny.
• Treat laughter as one useful part of staying close, not a test of how healthy you are. Some perfectly good weeks are quiet ones.
• Mix in something new, not only familiar routines.

Make small, regular room for it: aim for at least one shared activity a week, and give it a little time to build, because excitement doesn't always arrive on cue⁷. A simple programme built on this advice, with time for just the two of you and something new each week, has been linked with more relationship excitement, satisfaction and better mood, lasting at least four months^7,8.

Ideas that don't need much planning:

• Pick something you both like, from dancing to tennis to a walk somewhere you haven't been⁷.
• Surprise each other now and then⁷.
• Try a bit of role play. Arrange to meet somewhere and pretend you've just met, or that it's a first date⁷.
• Keep it realistic for your money and your time. A plan that's costly or hard to manage can add pressure rather than fun⁷.
• If you have children, you could switch off your phones and watch a film together, or ask someone in your family network to mind the children so you get some one-to-one time⁹.

If the week is wall-to-wall, shrink the idea rather than dropping it: twenty minutes of something new beats a perfect date night that never happens.