A Life In Review

5 Stars- I highly recommend taking one night a month and going out on a date with your spouse (or significant other). This holds especially true if you have kids. It’s one night a month where the two of you are forced to face each other and be a couple. This can be challenging, but it’s oh so worth it.

Before I married my husband, I received a lot of marriage advice. Most of it I ignored because it wasn’t applicable at the time, and let’s be honest, I didn’t ask for advice (though I probably should have). However, there was one piece of advice that stuck with me. A mom of 3 told me that if, down the line, I didn’t continue to date my spouse once we had kids, raised them, and they moved out, I would be stuck living with a stranger. I’m not sure why that piece of advice resonated with me, I didn’t have kids and we weren’t even married yet, but it stuck.

Fast forward to married life. We were pretty good about setting time aside to date, but we had to, because our schedules were opposite, so if we didn’t set aside time, we didn’t really see each other. Then we got pregnant, and that Mom’s advice just kept popping up in my head. Once the baby was born, all hell broke loose and we were spending every single day at the hospital, we had maybe 3 sit down dinners in a 3 month span (between my hospital stay and the baby’s NICU stay). When we finally brought her home, it was December. In December, we sit down and write out our goals for the following year. That same advice popped into my head again and we decided to make it a goal for us to go on one date night a month.

For some of you, this sounds super simple. Maybe things are settled in your life right now, and you have plenty of time with your spouse (or SO). For those of you like us, this is a daunting task. If that’s you, I feel you. Sometimes date night waits until the last day of the month. Sometimes, date night includes the baby (especially with the pandemic). It feels like a huge task, but it’s worth it. We use date night to recharge our marriage. I need our monthly date, sometimes just as a night that we don’t have to meal prep or cook.

Our first couple of date nights were trial and error as we worked on getting into the grove of things. I missed the baby soooooo much on our first date after she came home. It was hard to talk about anything else. Now, we miss her, but we are thankful for a peaceful dinner where we both get a hot meal at the same time. During our trial and error date nights, we’ve come up with some ways to make date nights as successful as they can be (life still gets in the way, but we are trying). Here’s what we’ve learned:

1. Choose a place to eat where you can actually hear each other and be able to have discussions (if you choose to go to the movies, that’s fine too, but the purpose of date night is to connect)
2. NO PHONES (set a designated time to check on your kid(s), but otherwise, phones need to go away).
3. Choose the restaurant ahead of time, 5:00pm the night of the date is not a great time to be indecisive and upset your already hangry partner (it’s me, I’m the indecisive one… and also the hangry one).
4. Bring a card game, or a dice game! Make the most of your alone time. Playing a quick game will spark fun and conversation.
5. Save up some money so that it’s not a worry for that night. Splurge on dinner, once in a while.
6. If money is tight (or you couldn’t save that month) go on a cheap date. Pack a picnic dinner. You don’t have to dress up fancy to spend quality time together (some of my favorite dates occur a Chick-fil-A).
7. If you choose to do an at home date night (or you are living through a Global Pandemic and can’t go out), make sure that you eat at the table, or the counter. No TV, still No phones. It will force you to face each other and interact.

Obviously we are still newly married (1.5 years in), so we have a lot to learn, but monthly date nights are something that we will continue to do. Date your spouse my friends, before you are left living with a stranger. Plus, dating your spouse is a great reminder of what helped build your relationship in the first place.  

Here are a few of my favorite date night pictures (read the captions for more tips and details):