Fixing relationship problems tip #3: Don’t use humor to cover up other emotions

Humor helps you stay resilient in the face of life’s challenges. Bu,t there are times when humor is not healthy—and that's when it is used as a cover for avoiding, rather than coping with, painful emotions. Laughter can be a disguise for feelings of hurt, fear, anger, and disappointment that you don’t want to feel or don’t know how to express.
You can be funny about the truth, but covering up the truth isn’t funny. When you use humor and playfulness as a cover for other emotions, you create confusion and mistrust in your relationships. The following are examples of misplaced humor:

Mike is a constant jokester. Nothing ever seems to get him down and he never takes anything seriously. No matter what happens to him or to anyone else, he makes a joke out of the situation. In reality, Mike is terrified of intimacy and commitment in his relationships, and uses humor to avoid uncomfortable feelings and to keep others at arm’s length.
Sharon is often jealous and possessive with her boyfriend John, but she has never learned to openly discuss her insecurities and fears. Instead, she uses what she thinks is humor to express her feelings. Her jokes, however, usually having a biting, almost hostile edge to them, and John doesn't find them funny at all. Instead of laughing, he often responds with a quiet coldness or withdrawal.

For cues as to whether or not humor is being used to conceal other emotions, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do nonverbal communication signals—such as tone of voice, intensity, timing—feel genuinely humorous to you, or do you experience them as forced or "not right” somehow?
• Is humor the only emotion you routinely express, or is there a mixture of other emotions that at least occasionally includes sadness, fear, and anger?