Keeping the Laughter in Marriage

Pseudobulbar = Uncontrollable Laughter

          At one of our favorite weddings, the young groom accidently said the funniest thing. Instead of promising to “love and laugh with” his bride, he said he would forever “love and laugh AT” his bride. The beautiful bride, without missing a beat, also promised to “love and laugh AT” her groom as well. Everyone cracked up at this memorable moment in the ceremony.   Although my hubby and I didn’t make that vow during our wedding ceremony, there were a few years where it came naturally.

          Being the mature people that we were, the first year we were married we argued about where to put the leftover pizza.  If the pizza sat out all night, I wanted to throw it away. Hubby thought it was still perfectly edible and did not want me to throw it away.  I finally gave in and left the pizza, still in the box, on the counter. While hubby was at work, and I was about to leave the house, I opened the box top. It looked like it had black olives all over it, but we had not ordered black olives. It was little black ants, thousands of them, covering the pizza! It was gross. So, I threw the whole box in the outside trashcan.

          Later, when I came home, the pizza box was back on the kitchen counter. I opened the box and the pizza was gone. Hubby came in and wanted to know why I had thrown away a perfectly good half of a pizza. He had retrieved it from the trashcan outside and eaten all of it.  I died laughing! It was both disgusting and hysterical at the same time.

          A few years later, Hubby was running through the house (!?), and tripped on some newspapers on the floor. I was sitting on the bed as he raced by, slipped on the newspapers and skidded across the floor, crashing. I died laughing! I am not sure why. It wasn’t funny. He was hurt, but I could not help myself. I laid down on the bed and pulled the covers over me, so he wouldn’t hear me laughing. Apparently, he could see the covers shaking up and down and knew I was laughing. He did not think it was funny, as he ended up getting a rug burn that peeled off his skin, and twenty years later still has the scar to prove it. The madder he got at me for laughing, the more uncontrollably I laughed.

          During this same time period, he went on our two-story roof to replace some window shutters on the second floor. The wind was blowing and one of the replacement shutters was sliding down the slanted roof. He reached his foot over to step on the sliding shutter. Instead of stopping it, he slid on the shutter, like a snowboarder and flew off the roof, landing on his back in our front yard. I fell on the floor laughing! It was so funny! Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt.

          Another time, he fell off the roof when he was on our cheap aluminum ladder. He and the ladder ended up in some bushes, with the ladder permanently mangled. I had to go in the kitchen so I could laugh, without him hearing me. But, he had seen me and knew I was laughing. He could not believe it. “I could have been seriously injured!” he yelled to me. “I know. I am sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. I can’t help it,” was all I could manage to get out between fits of laughter.

          At another house, we had carpet (possibly the slipperiest carpet ever, so I’ve been told) on the stairs, but hard ceramic tile at the bottom of the stairs. Several times he slipped and fell on the stairs. Then he would yell, “Don’t laugh. It’s not funny!” The more he said that, the funnier it was to me, and the more I laughed.

          The worst one was when he slipped on the first step at the top and tumbled all the way down, crashing on the tile at the bottom. I had heard him bump, bang and crash against the wall. I knew he was badly hurt. I lost it! – (I have to stop here and apologize. I am normally a compassionate person. I don’t usually laugh when bad things happen to people. I think I seriously had that disorder called pseudobulbar, where I could not control my laughing.)

          Our daughter, who was upstairs with me, heard all the commotion, and ran out to the hallway. Between, bursts of howling laughter, I told her Dad had fallen down the stairs and she needed to go check on him. She was about ten years old and looked at me indignantly, “Mom! Stop laughing. Dad is really hurt.”

          Tears were streaming down my face as I ran to my room, shut the door, ran into the tiny bathroom and shut that door, hoping he wouldn’t hear my obnoxious snorting and side splitting cackling! What was wrong with me? I could hear him moaning and complaining and still saying loudly, “Stop laughing!” What was I, a three year old who had no control over my emotions?! The more he said stop laughing, the more uncontrollable it was. I finally tried to pinch myself and bite my lip, hoping to invoke some type of pain in myself to stop laughing. It was terrible! And, really, really funny!

          Thankfully, in the last twenty years hubby has become more sure footed.  I have also finally matured enough to use self control and show genuine concern without giggling when something funny, someone has an accident.

                                 I hope you are keeping the laughter in your marriage. 

                                      Laughing together that is, not AT one another.


           Need more laughter? Click  here funny 1 or  here funny 2 or even  here funny 3 .
                                 Laugh on!