Love 101: Laughing With Your Partner Improves Relationships

The best way to boost your marriage is to laugh with your spouse, rather than alone. Research shows that sharing jokes works like a tonic to keep your love interest in each other going, according to theindependent.

Men who share laughter feel more passion with their partners. The study, carried out by researcher and lecturer Laura Kurtz in the Department of Psychology at the University of North Carolina, is the first to examine the effect of laughter on a relationship, instead of on one person alone.

She showed a "clear relationship payback for shared laughter" over "solo laughter".

"What this means is that we can say that there is something unique about shared laughter for a relationship," said Ms Kurtz. "It isn't just enough to laugh in the presence of your partner - it's the moments where you are both laughing together that really seem to count."

Humor itself can keep things "exciting, fresh, and vibrant" and help you to overcome "conflicts, disagreements, and the tiny aggravations" than can wreck all relationships.

Probing 77 heterosexual couples, it was found that out of 1,399 laughs, 256 were shared laughs. They led to "relationship happiness, such as closeness, commitment, satisfaction and passion".

Men laughing tend to start more shared laughter than otherwise, according to helpguide.

As the study was "correlational", it did not directly show that "laughter definitely causes a better relationship". Pretending to find your partner funny is also not such a good idea.

"I would [...] caution against faking a laugh to try to improve your relationship. We tend to be pretty good at detecting whether a laugh is genuine or not, so you don't want to come across as insincere," Kurtz said.

"Rather, I would suggest finding ways to put yourself in situations where you might genuinely laugh with your partner - skip the latest action flick in favour of a comedy.

"If you prioritise the things in your life that might make you and your partner laugh, I would say there is a good chance the behavior is likely to follow."