A lot of times when we talk about making marriage a priority, we focus on the bigger actions we can take. Things like date night, overnight getaways, and big romantic gestures. While those things are all great, it’s the simple things that are going to make the biggest difference in your marriage! My goal and passion in marriage and relationship education is to help couples find those simple ways they can grow their marriage relationship and who they are as individuals. The simple things are really the big things when it comes to building a long-lasting marriage. I have written two books to help couples make their marriage a priority, throughout every situation they find themselves in.
I wrote Beyond Date Night to provide couples with simple connecting ideas. I also included a variety of ways to implement each idea in everyday life. Beyond Date Night will provide you with more than 20 actionable tips you can implement in your marriage. The goal is to help you continue to make each other a priority throughout every stage of life. Each chapter includes multiple suggestions for implementing each tip in your own relationship. Every married couple will be able to find creative ways to be intentional in their relationship with each other. If you are willing to put the tips in this book into action, you’ll find success!
No piece of marriage advice is one size fits all. I can tell you to schedule a date with your spouse weekly, but how that will look in your marriage is going to be different than every other couple around you. The activities that you’ll enjoy, the budget you have, whether you can go out or need to stay home, etc. These are going to be based on your individual preferences and where you are currently in life. I have tried to provide a variety of examples in the book for how you might implement each chapter’s tip in your own marriage to get the wheels turning. You will need to work together to find the best way to implement those tips and adjust as needed for your marriage!
Each chapter of this book is laid out, in the same way, to help you easily take what has been written and put the tips into action! At the beginning of the chapter, you’ll find the education piece–the reasons why that specific tip is going to make a difference as you’re working to make your marriage more of a priority each day. The next part of the chapter is the “what to do”, where I share how to put that tip into action in your own marriage. And then you have the “how to do it” section, which is probably my favorite! This is where you’ll find ideas and examples of how I’ve seen that specific tip in action in other marriages and relationships throughout my time in the field of family life education.
Don’t try to tackle everything at once. Pick one or two suggestions that you can implement in your marriage now. Adjust those tips, using the ideas I share, until they fit your current stage of life and become a habit. After you’ve created a meaningful routine that helps you stay connected, come back to the book and pick one or two new items to implement. When you find yourselves in a stage of life or a situation where one of those simple things you’ve been doing isn’t working well anymore, come back to the book and adjust it again, whether for the short-term or more permanently.
John Gottman always says that “it’s the simple things done often that make the biggest difference”. What does that mean for your marriage? It means that while big surprises and long stretches of quality time are beneficial, and something you should make part of your marriage, it’s those little things you do every day in between that will keep your relationship strong in the end. In addition to weekly date nights, surprising your spouse with a getaway, and going all out to celebrate them on a special occasion, you must continue to pursue each other in simple ways every day. More than the simple things you’re doing every day, it’s the intentional time and effort you put toward building and strengthening your relationship that will create a great marriage you’ll enjoy your whole life!
Think back to the early days of your relationship. Do you remember how hard you both worked to find time to spend together? Do you and your spouse work just as hard to fit your relationship into your schedules now? The time you get to spend together each day provides a great opportunity for you to bond as a couple. But that doesn’t make date night any less important. Social science literature says that there are five different ways date night strengthens marriage relationships. Date night improves communication, keeps things between the two of you fresh and exciting, strengthens the romantic love in your relationship, increases commitment between husband and wife, and helps you de-stress as a couple. Each of these five things contributes to a stronger relationship and a stronger marriage (Wilcox, 2012).
Now that we are parents, our date nights are limited by extra costs for the babysitter, our kids’ needs, and other parental responsibilities. But for some reason, date night comes more easily than it used to. My guess is that this is because our time alone together, especially the time that we get outside the house, isn’t as frequent or easy to come by so date night has become a higher priority for us. No matter our stage or situation in life, my husband and I have always strived to set aside time each week when we can step away from our regular routine and make time for fun with each other. We have learned just how important that intentional connection is for our relationship in our current stage and as we work to build a strong future together.
Related: Why Your Marriage Needs You to Make Date Night a Priority
My goal in writing Prioritizing Date Night in Your Marriage is to take the pressure off of planning date night. I want to help couples start having fun together on a regular basis. This book will be a resource for you and your spouse as you are deciding what you want to do together on your planned evening out (or in) each week. I included my best tips and tricks to help you make date night happen on a regular basis and to make the planning less stressful. I’ve also included over 300 date night ideas to give you some fun things to do together.
I have worked hard to put together date night ideas that will appeal to newlyweds, new parents, seasoned parents, empty nesters, couples on a tight budget, couples looking to splurge a bit, couples with only an hour or two or less time for date night or couples who have an entire day/weekend/week to spend together. I want to help married couples make every moment that they have to spend working on their relationship count! My hope is that the ideas included in this book will help you and your spouse start to think creatively and find ways to spice up your usual date night activities. Some of the date night ideas are simple while others are a bit more special or extravagant. Feel free to use the ideas as written or tailor any of them to fit your current stage in life.
Setting goals, conquering challenges, and walking hand in hand through life together are all great for your relationship. Life may throw unique adventures your way, and those adventures may not always be fun. Keep your relationship from going stale by making date night a priority in your marriage. And find something fun and new to do together during that time each week!
The more you and your spouse work to make date night a priority, the more easily ideas for what to do on those dates will come to you. And the more of a habit date night will become. Date night will no longer be something that you do each week because you know it’s important for your marriage. Date night will become something that you both look forward to with excitement each week. Make your marriage more of a priority by making date night a priority! The two of you won’t ever regret setting aside that time to focus on each other.
Date night doesn’t have to be extravagant and neither do the things you do each day to show your spouse that you care. Download my ebooks or order your paperback copy of them and start prioritizing your marriage in simple ways. I refer to the books myself whenever I find that we’re in a rut and need to change it up. You’ll be able to use these books throughout your entire marriage! The small and simple ways you prioritize your spouse and your marriage will make your marriage strong for the future.
Resources
Wilcox, W.B., & Dew, J. (2012). The date night opportunity: What does couple time tell us about the potential value of date nights? The National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.
