Does Date Night Matter?

Does Date Night Matter?

I received this ques­tion regard­ing about my opin­ion on Date Night hav­ing taught col­lege level mar­riage & fam­ily courses I have had the same ques­tion asked in classes by curi­ous stu­dents. Also, as some­one who has been mar­ried for more then 10 years {together as a cou­ple for over 15 years} I have had many talks with my own friends about it. It’s appar­ently on a lot of people’s minds! No won­der since most cou­ples strug­gle in this busy mod­ern world to find time to con­nect, the impor­tance of date night is some­thing that is a hot discussion.

Yes, in my opin­ion, date night does matter.

It allows for cou­ples to bond and share time together that is just for them. Bond­ing is a way to cre­ate emo­tional inti­macy and emo­tional inti­macy is what will sus­tain a rela­tion­ship through the chal­lenges it faces in life.

Date night can also hap­pen in a vari­ety of ways:

1. It does not have to be a night away or going out. It can be a night in with a spe­cial meal, sit­ting around the fire pit or watch­ing a movie together.
2. It can be a night out that isn’t overly costly. Every date night does not have to be a high pres­sure event. It could be a cup of cof­fee out at a local cof­fee house, a walk, or a pic­nic at the park.
3. It can be dur­ing the day with a visit to a museum or break­fast out together.
4. It can also be an event out that is low pres­sure on the con­ver­sa­tion or pro­vides a topic for you talk about after; watch­ing a base­ball game together or see­ing a local band perform.

How­ever, all the date nights in the world won’t help if you don’t do one thing every day:: Communicate.

You need to try to talk daily about what is going on in your lives. You need to spend some time con­nect­ing. Talk by text, phone or email. Before bed carve out time to ask “How was your day?” and just lis­ten. Cook together, gar­den or what­ever day-to-day life activ­i­ties you both can do together that allow talk­ing to hap­pen while doing some­thing. If you are a reli­gious cou­ple then pray together {even a sim­ple grace before meals is a start}, dis­cuss your faith, and attend reli­gious events as a couple.

You also need to touch each other often. Sim­ply share a kiss to say good­bye or hello. Sit near each other, cud­dle. I know it is rad­i­cal. But be close just for the sake of being close. Hold hands, yes I know it may seem silly if you have been mar­ried or together for years to do this. But remem­ber that feel­ing when you first held hands? The one that made your heart flut­ter? Why? Because you were touch­ing and it was sim­ple act of close­ness with­out any imme­di­ate expec­ta­tion. What­ever you do, remem­ber we com­mu­ni­cate not only with our words but also with our bod­ies and touch. If we never share phys­i­cal space out­side of the bed then we begin to find even a bed we share with some­one is a lonely place.

In the end, date night does mat­ter. But don’t put all of your rela­tion­ship aside and hope to rekin­dle it on date night. The worst expe­ri­ence for a cou­ple is to have a date night that feels like a blind date. As if you are at the table with a stranger. And the only way to com­bat that out­come is to remem­ber that date night is about deep­en­ing an already exist­ing friend­ship, romance, and emo­tional inti­macy you have as a cou­ple. And that you have to work on every day.

Now what are your opin­ions? Do you think Date Night mat­ters? How do you find time together as a couple?

Tagged as: advice, Date, husband, life, love, Marriage, relationships