How to Tease Your Wife

Introduction

One of the signs of a healthy marriage is what can simply be called playfulness. On the other hand, in an unhealthy marriage, teasing is like pouring rubbing alcohol on an open wound. Not only that but oftentimes, when a marriage is struggling, both spouses begin misusing teasing, and what should be a healthy aspect of playfulness in marriage becomes a club to bash each other with. Running underneath all this is James’ reminder that the tongue is like a spark that can ignite a whole forest fire. Spiteful jesting with your wife is speed-running to a dull marriage. But a marriage where jesting is non-existent will also be a dull marriage. Good-natured teasing is a fruit of a healthy marriage, and like a garden without plants is dull so too a marriage without this fruit will be quite bland.

Know Your Audience

One of the principle duties of the comedian is to know his audience. Certain jokes just won’t land with the wrong audience. This isn’t necessarily because the audience is humorless, but because the humor wasn’t thoughtfully chosen to provoke laughter.

Think in terms of concentric circles. When you’re alone with your wife, intimate (not vulgar) teasing is not only fine but even encouraged. Think of Isaac “sporting” with Rebekah…this is the sort of flirtatious teasing that would be wildly inappropriate anywhere else, but is really important in your marriage. If you can’t do that with each other, it surely indicates deeper issues which you should meet with your pastor about.

Moving outward, your children should see you and your wife being tastefully flirtatious with each other. You are teaching them how they should one day behave in their own marriages, and you want to give them something to look forward to, for the time being be sort of grossed out by. In teasing your spouse in front of the kids, however, you should remember that if you are denigrating her in front of them, you are creating a breeding ground for raising fools who despise their mother’s instruction. Of course, this cuts both ways, and a wife should be guarded about how she teases her husband, making sure it is good-hearted teasing and not mean spirited put-downs. 

As you move on to extended family you have all sorts of possible challenges. Teasing your wife in front of your mom could result in your mom cementing her opinion that no one deserves her baby and especially not this upstart who duped you into marrying her. Thus, while you want your interactions with your wife to be playful and joyful in the presence of extended family, you need to make sure to check the oil of the relationships first so as not to inadvertently make things between spouse and parents/in-laws more tricky. In healthy relationships, familial teasing is like filling up the tank with gas, with unhealthy relationships it’s more like dumping gas on an open fire.

Now, you should not let any sort of emotional immaturity on the part of extended family dictate the manner in which you treat each other. You should maintain normal. However, factor in Solomon’s wisdom, “The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water: therefore leave off contention, before it be meddled with (Pro. 17:14).” In other words, choose your words wisely when in the company of those who are as emotionally stable as a box of packing peanuts.

When with guests or in public settings, you should be particularly mindful of the fact that words can’t be unsaid. First impressions are hard to change, and your duty is to praise your wife publicly. Men might try to impress the other guys at the party with a rapier sharp joke at your wife’s expense. Put downs, intimate stories, retelling some mistake she made, or off-color comments about her really are out of place in the mouth of a Christian husband.

Affectionate Gentleness

I want to argue that your jesting with your wife should flow out of a disposition of affectionate gentleness. That should be the aroma of all your dealings with your wife. But given that a poorly chosen word can undermine a great deal of your actions, it is important to apply this to how you speak with your wife, and more specifically, how you tease her and joke with her. Scripture tells us that such gentleness (or moderation/restraint) should be evident to all men (Phi. 4:5); further this gentleness is a sign of heavenly wisdom resting upon you (Jas. 3:17). This patient gentleness is a requirement for elders (1 Tim. 3:3), and is the duty of citizens (Tit. 3:2).

To further support this point of affection gentleness defining all your words and dealings, but especially towards your wife, here are a few poignant quotes:

“Because she is his wife, he owes her the loftiest courtesy he can pay. There is no other of whose feelings he should be so careful, and whom he should so grieve to hurt.” 
JR Miller

“Treat your wife always with respect. It will procure respect to you not only from her, but from all who observe it. Never use a slighting expression to her even in jest, for slights in jest, after frequent bandyings, are apt to end in angry speeches.”
Gorham D. Abbott

“The gentleness of a husband must be manifested in his speech and conduct. For as far as reverence extends itself in the duties of wives, gentleness must be extended in the duties of husbands. Whether a husband’s speech be to his wife before her face, or behind her back, it must be sweetened with gentleness.”
William Gouge

Gouge also offers an a fortiori argument that if ministers are charged with correcting “those that oppose themselves” and are to do so with meekness, how much more should a husband correct his wife with meekness instead of derision or insult.

None of this should be contemplated as any sort of softening of your masculinity. You must remain masculine, and one of the principle attributes of redeemed masculinity is self-control. This must be true of your jokes and the tone of them as directed towards your wife. 

How to Tease

First, walk uprightly. Your teasing will be received as hurtful if it is surrounded by sin towards your wife. A stingy husband can’t joke with his wife about the money. A harsh husband can’t joke about the burnt toast. A porn-brained husband can’t joke about getting frisky. So, walking with integrity allows your jokes to land. Remember that wonderful Proverb about the madman errantly shooting flaming arrows with recklessness, and how that is what a deceptive man is like who claims his deceptions were just a good joke.

Second, remember to be Narnian.Remember the first joke in Narnia (in the Magician’s Nephew) and how Aslan wisely instructed the animals who had just received the gift of speech to not use that speech only for grave converse. “Laugh and fear not, creatures. Now that you are no longer dumb and witless, you need not always be grave. For jokes as well as justice come in with speech.” To reign as a king within the domain of your domestic life is to understand that our gift of speech empowers us to rule judiciously and dispense joviality. Wit is the verbal exercise of wisdom in both light and weighty matters. Such joviality is a buoying joy, and is vastly different from the oppressive clouds of belittlement which many men replace joviality with.

Third, she is not a man. Whereas amongst this college of distinguished gentlemen we can make each other the butt of the joke, your wife is not a man. You must not put her in the vulnerable position of having to endure the discomfort of being put down, mocked, and ridiculed. Consider your wife’s own frame and disposition in all this, but teasing your wife must always be situated underneath the higher duty of “praising her in the gates.” If a funny story about your wife’s mishap can be told in such a way that expresses how deeply you love one another and how delighted you are in each other’s foibles, well and good. But you must remember that she is your bride to be cherished, she is not content for your stand up routine. 

Conclusion

In short, to tease your wife well means you must learn to master your tongue. Many men lack self-control entirely, and this of course will be most obvious in the words they speak, and perhaps most starkly in how they speak about and to their wife. Thus, default to praise and encouragement, and good-natured and witty teasing will be quite at home. If you aren’t a temperate man, all your jesting will be like a madman with a blowtorch in a cotton mill.