Posted on: November 28, 2007
‘I Was Just Teasing!’
The right kind of teasing can buoy a romance; the wrong kind can sink it. Do you know the difference?
By Lisa Bertagnoli
CTW Features
Sitcoms would be lost without the sometimes-loving, sometimes-vicious teasing that takes place between small-screen couples. Jim and Cheryl on “According to Jim,” Larry and Cheryl on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and even Julius and Rochelle on “Everybody Hates Chris” tease each other mercilessly, but it all ends with a happy hug.
That’s not always true in real life, though.
Early in her marriage, Cheryl Monkhouse, who lives in Suwanee, Ga., grew weary of her husband’s constant teasing. They had agreed that he’d be the primary chef and housekeeper; still, he teased her about her dearth of domestic skills. If they had a date planned, he’d say he had made other plans, only to say “just kidding!” after watching Cheryl squirm. He even ribbed her about being “chubby” during her first few months of pregnancy.
To make matters worse, he did all this teasing in front of their friends.
It’s not as if Monkhouse, 37, is overly delicate, or “thin-skinned,” a favorite accusation of chronic teasers. “I come from a family of teasers … it is a part of the way we say ‘I love you’ to each other,” she says. “I do love the joking attention and wouldn’t know what to do if it stopped.”
Still, “it gets old really quickly,” she says, especially when teasing permeates every aspect of a relationship.
Monkhouse finally called her husband on the teasing; gently first, then more forcefully. “We had some knock-down, drag-outs,” she says. A final, explosive argument finally put teasing in its place. Monkhouse and her husband, who’ve been married about a year and a half, now abide by a set of rules for teasing: In private it’s fine, in public, not fine, and weight and other body issues are totally off limits.
“The last thing we want to do is hurt each other,” Monkhouse says. “Teasing and joking can be so much fun, you don’t want to turn it into a weapon.”
Relationship experts agree with Monkhouse. In gentle, consensual doses, teasing adds a note of intimacy to a relationship. But a barrage of teasing, especially the one-sided kind – where one partner plays the bully and the other a victim – can damage a relationship.
What is healthy teasing? “It’s open to reciprocation, and that’s what healthy relationships are about,” says Dr. John Ardizzone, a psychologist at The Family Institute at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. “Good” teasing pokes fun at a situation, not an individual, and is amusing to both parties. It also addresses a foible or quirky quality that both parties are aware of and fine with.
Frank Farley, a psychologist and professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, gives an example of teasing that could turn out light and playful, or dark and ugly. Your partner sees a picture of you from the past, say from your high-school yearbook, and laughs at it because you have weird hair. A comment such as “That’s an awful picture of you,” and retort of “Well, I’d like to see your high school yearbook someday!” can spark a fun connection – “a shared experience,” in Farley’s words.
But take that same scenario and add the comment “Wow, looks like you still haven’t had that nose job” … Ouch. Such teasing violates the ultimate teasing rule: Never make fun of something a person can’t help, such as their facial features. And, with a scathing comment like that, “you have to wonder why [the teaser] is even in the relationship,” Farley points out.
Teasing becomes unhealthy and damaging when the teaser uses it as a cudgel; a weapon to put, and keep, the other party in her place. (And usually the recipient is female; experts say men are much more likely to tease and more immune to whatever harm teasing can cause. “It’s like roughhousing,” Ardizzone says.)
For that reason, some experts find teasing unacceptable.
“I find teasing hurtful. I think it’s a defense people use to not to be close,” says Blair Hull, an ordained minister and counselor who works in Deerfield, Ill. “It’s a power thing: ‘I’m smarter than you, I’m better than you.’”
Still, Hull allows, different couples use different methods to communicate, and teasing may well be one of those methods.
Teasing acts as a secret language of sorts for Diana Rohini LaVigne and her husband, who have been married for two years.
LaVigne, 34, says teasing comes naturally to the couple. “When you have a more intimate relationship, you look to do things with that other person that you don’t share with others,” says LaVigne, a resident of Fremont, Calif.
Inadvertently, their teasing has drawn others into their intimate world. Once, while at a grocery store, they engaged in some good-natured teasing about a bag of ladoo, a round, sugary Indian dessert that LaVigne’s husband planned to buy.
“I said, ‘No, you can’t get that!’ as if I had veto power,” LaVigne says with a laugh. Their laughing and sparring soon gathered a small crowd, which “shared a moment with us,” LaVigne says.
Mostly, though, teasing is just for the two of them. “It’s very important to our intimacy in our relationship,” LaVigne says. “We don’t share this teasing with anyone but each other.”
