Marriage Moment-Date Night

Focus on the Family is sponsoring a “Date Night Challenge”.  The idea is to encourage married couples to, as frequently as possible, have a date night.  This is meant to strengthen marriages and in turn strengthen families.  I am all for this.  I know that the dates my husband and I have, thanks to our older children, have bonded is together in a strong and special way.  I think that our older children know this and that is why they offer to watch the little ones for us. 

 

Not everyone has such a large gap in their children’s ages in order to have built in babysitters.  When Allie and Zachary, our older two, were little we didn’t have that either  So, we had to create our own way of having a date.

 

 

One way that you can plan it, is to  have a “Day-t night”.  When our kids were small, up till about 7-8 years old, we would have a nap or rest time for them.  They would go into their rooms for 1- 1 1/2 hours and we would have our “Day-t”.  We would watch a movie, eat a meal together, or maybe even a Sunday afternoon nap.

 

Another idea is a “late night date night”.  Again, when the kids were small till they were about 10-11 years old, we would put them to bed by 8:00- 8:30pm and that would be our time together.

 

 

I hear so many parents say that they can’t get their children to nap or they can’t get then to bed before 10pm.  But I tell you it is so worth the struggle to really put forth the effort.  Once they realize that you expect it, then it just comes natural.  We always expected our children to follow those rules, yes for selfish reasons, but our children now have parents whose marriage is solid and has stood the test of time.  That is a cliché, but it is so true, time will test your marriage.   Marriages become dull and mundane when they aren’t revived and refreshed often, by that intimate time alone together to continue that memory of why you fell in love.

 

I heard something yesterday on the radio about marriage.  The strength of a marriage doesn’t come from big events, like marriage conferences or weekend getaways.  It comes from the daily and weekly moments that we set aside for each other. 

I hope that you can make time for a date with your hubby really soon.

 

Jeannie