Dave and I were recently discussing our date nights....wait a minute? What date nights? Oh they happened every now and again but most date nights were really just us laying on the couch watching reruns of our favorite TV show on Netflix This isn't bad, but I can't say it was really us being intentional on nurturing our marriage. Every couple is different so please don't think that our recipe is the recipe for everyone but I do encourage you to discuss and pray with your spouse on specifics for your marriage? What do you need to do to connect with one another on a regular basis? What would help you grow more closely together? For us we decided that we wanted a Friday Night Date Night. Now we have a small child so how does that work? Well we are blessed to have a pair of grandparents down the street, and in other times of our marriage we have swapped date nights with people in our small group which worked out great also. Oh and you also have to remember...I didn't say every Friday night would be spent on a date outside of our home....nope! We decided we wanted to have 2 date nights outside of the home a month and 2 date nights in (if we can swing it but at least one date outside of the home!). Abbie goes to bed at 7 so that means we can have our own date night after she goes to bed even when we are home! So for last Fridays Date Night we chose to build a fire in the fireplace, treat ourselves to some French Press coffee and play chess (new secret about me I'm kind of a nerd at heart or maybe my husband turned me into one....before him I'd never even watched Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.
Two opposing sides: I will say I was white (the more angelic of the two of us...ha!)
I proudly can say that I won. That rarely happens. Dave typically is pretty good at chess!
Our date was delightful and fun and intentional, and so needed.
Would you join us friends? Would you challenge yourselves to pray together about what being intentional in your own marriages means and then do it?
Dating after having children is especially hard and you just have to make it a priority. Our marriages are so important, even more important than being a mother or father to our child...so we must keep it a priority.
So now....go pray! And please share with the rest of us what you and your spouse decide, cause I'm sure it could be an encouragement to so many others!
Do you have any favorite date night ideas for in your home or outside of your home??
Blessings,
Date nights are tough around here, just because at the end of the week, we would almost rather get in comfy clothes, play with the kids, then sleep! BUT we try to get one in every other month. With 2 its harder and I don't like to mess with their schedules OR their daddy time too much. But it is so so important! Thanks for this reminder!
ReplyDeleteWe just did a similar date night this weekend! We played scrabble with candlelight at our (semi-cleanish) kitchen table (It did have a nice fresh table cloth on it!)
ReplyDeleteI felt exhausted getting to the actual date part of the night -- I had grand plans of getting the house clean, me clean, emotions clean and then having a perfect setting. It went more like this: took a shower while baby slept, but she woke up and cried half way through, so I nursed her instead of cleaning the house, and when Blake got home from picking up our take out (with J) we both kinda attempted to get the house together (it gets disastrous!!) while working towards bedtime. Eventually the girls were a sleep, (but I was kinda crabby by this point, not to mention starving) and we turned on music and ate in candle light. (We haven't done candles in more than a year.) It felt perfect. I finally relaxed and decompressed. And then scrabble was WAY more fun than the usual movie. We were talking about "why don't we do this more?" during our date. It was really nice.
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ReplyDeleteI was just chatting to my hubby about date nights earlier. It's hard when you have a small baby!
I love this. I found you through Shelia's blog and I was at She Speaks this past summer too! We have three year old triplets and both work full time so I know how hard date nights can be. But we really do try to have one once a month even though we start it later so we can get the kids to bed and have my mom babysit. Even if it's just going to sit at a restaurant bar and have a glass of wine and an appetizer, we get to sit and talk with just us there and no distractions of things to do around the house. I love that time with him.
ReplyDeleteSo glad to meet you Gindi! I'm sad we didn't get to meet at She Speaks though! I love simple dates like that. Sometimes just being able to set aside the hat we were of "mom" just for a few hours is all we need to be rejuvenated to be mom again for awhile. I think dating our spouse is a work in progress. There is always room for improvement!
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