Don’t get me wrong, I think it is important to bring humor into the relationship, especially when there is often too little humor. But do it for that reason, to lighten things up. When you do this, are you expecting anything in return? Either you ease the tension or you don’t, right? Not much deeper than that.
But try to use humor to cheer up a spouse for some other purpose (such as getting sex) and you suddenly bring in expectations. That is where you get the disconnect between the reality of the situation and what you hope the situation will be, ie, reality vs fantasy. The “manipulation” comes back on you, not your spouse. Your spouse has no idea what your expectation or fantasy is, so s/he has no hopes or fantasy to be dashed. But as the perpetrator of the “manipulation,” you risk the loss of your fantasy, which leads to disappointment and more resentment.
It can be a low probability wager, since the response to the humor is completely in the hands of the spouse. You have little control over the outcome, other than how good you are at making humor, but even that dries up after a while.
