Oh, I hear this one a lot. And I want you to know, what you’re describing is not a small thing. It’s not quirky humor. It’s not you being too sensitive. Let’s just sit with what’s actually happening here.
When someone says something that lands like a cut, and then wraps it in “just kidding,” what they’ve done is delivered the hit AND taken away your right to respond to it. Because now if you say “that hurt me,” you’re suddenly the one with the problem. You’re the one who can’t take a joke. You’re the one who’s too serious.
You see how that works? The original wound is still there, but now you’re also defending yourself for having been wounded. That’s a double bind, and it’s exhausting to live inside of.
Here’s what I want you to consider. Humor is one of the ways we say true things that feel too risky to say directly. Sometimes people use jokes to float a real grievance, a real frustration, maybe even a real contempt, and the “just kidding” is the escape hatch if the other person reacts. So the question I would want to sit with your partner about is: what is actually in the joke? Because something is in there. Jokes don’t come from nowhere.
Now, I’m not here to tell you your partner is a bad person. But I am going to tell you this clearly. The impact on you is real whether the intent was harmful or not. You don’t need to prove intent to deserve an apology. You felt hurt. That’s data. That matters.
What I would want for you is a moment where you can say, without it becoming a debate about whether it was funny, “When you said that, I felt small. I need you to hear that.” And what I would want from your partner is the capacity to receive that without immediately reaching for “I was just kidding” as a shield.
That capacity, to hear your partner’s pain and stay present with it instead of defending yourself, that’s actually the core of what healthy partnership asks of us. It’s the difference between two people protecting themselves from each other and two people protecting each other together.
You deserve a partner who can do that. The question is whether yours is willing to learn how.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
