“How do you make a date night at home feel different than every other night at home?” This is a question that I get on a fairly regular basis. It’s something that people are really curious about right now, as our only option for date night has been at home or nothing. So I wanted to share some tips to help you make your time at home together more intentional!
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Just like a date night out, your date nights at home will be a lot more successful if you’ve planned ahead of time what you’re going to do. There won’t be any “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” conversations when you’ve made that decision beforehand. If we’re not leaving the planning up to one spouse or the other, I like to discuss our plans each week in our marriage meeting.
Knowing what you’re planning to do each week will help you in a lot of ways. First of all, it will give you something to look forward to! You will know how you need to prepare for the day, what kind of clothes to wear and what sort of atmosphere the two of you want to create. And best of all, it gives you something to do together and helps you to be intentional with your date nights at home.
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I always suggest that couples have a set of guidelines or “rules” for date night. The guidelines that we’ve set help us to connect more when we’re out on a date. They include things like not checking social media, avoiding talking about certain topics, and those other issues that might distract us from each other.
When you stay home for date night and are somewhere you feel super comfortable, it’s easy to forget about those things. I like to schedule a time for date night, so we know when those date night guidelines are in place. It might sound silly, but saying, “date night starts at 6 pm and ends at 9 pm” communicates that expectation so there aren’t any misunderstandings.
When it’s time for date night, you can put your phones away in another room. That’s the time when you stop talking about the things you’ve deemed “off limits” for date night. And you can focus on each other, not the kids or the housework or any work that you’re doing from home. Having decided to keep those guidelines in tact for at-home date night will make it feel more special.
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A few weeks ago, I had a really fun at-home date planned for Saturday night. That morning, we decided to clean out our garage. The project quickly turned into us organizing a few other areas outside as well. Before we knew it, we’d spent at least eight hours outside cleaning and organizing and working hard. Then we fed and bathed and put our tired kiddos to bed. But the time date night rolled around, we were exhausted. We didn’t have any energy left to do what I had planned for the evening.
If you know that you have a date planned, don’t fill your day with lots of energy-draining activities. Make sure you’re accounting for the energy you want to have to be able to have fun and connect with each other at the end of the day. Otherwise, you’ll end up like we did a few weeks ago, crashed in bed with takeout, falling asleep before the show we’d picked out was even over. We didn’t get to do what we had planned for date night. And to be honest, that night didn’t really feel like a date.
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I’m one of those people who has a hard time focusing on activities at home when there is clutter around me or things to be done. So although I told you to not tackle too many things the day of date night and save energy for your spouse. I will suggest that you set aside some time before your date to tidy up, get the kids’ dinner dishes taken care of, the laundry put away, and whatever you have to get done. Don’t compromise the quality of your time together by leaving things undone and calling your name. And anything that doesn’t get done, make sure it gets mentally put on tomorrow’s to-do list, so you’ve come to terms with not worrying about it for the rest of the night.
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I had a friend tell me once that it’s hard to put date night at home ahead of some other things. Because date night doesn’t have the immediate, noticeable effect that something like doing the dishes or tackling an organizing project might have. While you might not see an immediate surge in your relationship, date night does make a huge difference in your marriage in the long run.
Putting each other first and making date night a priority is always a good choice. The dishes will still be there tomorrow and there will always be dishes to do. And while it might feel like your relationship will always be there, it’s not the same as those dishes. If you aren’t putting the effort in that you need to, your relationship will slowly slip away and it won’t be there in the way that it needs to be. One day you’ll find yourself doing the dishes at night, wishing that you could instead, be spending time with your spouse.
Related: How Your Marriage Could Benefit From a Few Date Nights at Home
At-home date nights have become some of my favorites over the past few years. We’ve had to embrace them in our current stage of life. And they’ve been all we’ve had in some brief seasons of our marriage. I still crave a good date night out on a regular basis. But I find myself longing for them less when we make a date night at home happen on the weeks we can’t go out.
So, change the location where you usually find yourselves hanging out every night. Put your phones and your computers and your other electronics away. Send the kids to bed a little early or set up their own “party” in another area of the house. Forget about your to-do list, and set aside your regular, nightly projects. Enjoy your time together, connecting and having fun in a place where you feel the most comfortable.
For more date night ideas like these ones, check out the book, Prioritizing Date Night in Your Marriage, with 300+ date night ideas.
