Date Night
A few years ago, Gregg and I were reading a book on marriage by a Christian counselor. In this book, it was recommended that a married couple have a date night once a week.
Once a week?
That point, we had Kaylee and Scott, and had never left Scott with a babysitter. I think maybe he was almost one year old. We scoffed at the thought of going out together once a week.
Then we read another book that recommended the same thing. And another. Listening to a sermon on marriage, the same thing was recommended. “Married couples need to commit to each other to spend one-on-one, away from home time no less than once a week.”
We were intrigued and decided to give it a try. Of course, Gregg had to come home permanently first. When he was home for a few weeks here and there, it was easy to find babysitters and make arrangements to go on a date – people expected it of us. We had friends clamoring for the opportunity to give us some time alone.
Now Gregg is home full time, and has been for three weeks. We have been really purposeful in arranging that time alone. So far, we have been to a movie, to an art show, and shopping. In the coming two weeks, we have tickets to a dinner theater and a Christian music concert.
I have to tell you – I’m loving these date nights. We’ve been planning things we have control of for week nights, so as not to interfere with the purposeful family time we have set aside on the weekends. But, that one night a week, or that one morning a week, or whatever it ends up being, has been absolutely wonderful. Several times we’ve even made it home in time to put the boys to bed and give Kaylee our typical evening attention.
Gregg knows my preference to going somewhere dressy so that I can get all blingy and put on some awesome shoes, and he does his best to accommodate that when he makes the plans.
It isn’t always easy to make the arrangements. Kaylee has plans on Thursday every week with her youth group, and the next few dates happen to fall on Thursdays. But, it gives us as adults something to look forward to without children, to plan romance and married time and get excited about dating each other again.
If you aren’t dating your spouse regularly, I highly recommend it. We are certainly enjoying it.
Hallee
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I think it is really important to do date night. Sometimes our date nights are out to Evilmart or even to Home Depot, but it doesn’t matter where we go, it matters that we’re together. ALONE. :)
Our date time is lunch time these days, but it works well- glad you are making time for each other!
Where is the “thumbs up” button? I think this is so important! It seems that many parents focus all of their time with their children and then I have to wonder who is in charge – the parents or the children? Of course I realize that we also have the opposite extreme whereby so many parents ignore their children but that is a different topic for another day. Children are a blessing from God but they are also a by-product of marriage. Children need to witness and comprehend that the “two become one.” As spouses, we have to continually work on oneness in marriage…what better way to do that than to escape and spend time together on date night?
I agree. We used to do it weekly, right now we’re working around his school and work so it doesn’t happen as often. But he still makes a point to plan something extra special at some point in the year and we’ll get a hotel room and go to dinner and stuff. (Plus we’re shorter on money now than we were so we can’t go out, but he tries to do things with me at home.)