{"id":8081,"date":"2014-08-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites-stage.familylife.com\/flministries\/?p=8081"},"modified":"2014-08-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-06T00:00:00","slug":"reclaiming-date-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/articles\/topics\/marriage\/staying-married\/communication\/reclaiming-date-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Reclaiming Date Night"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\" fetchpriority=\"high\"><\/div><p>Recently on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/familylifeministry\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FamilyLife Facebook page<\/a> we asked our readers about date nights:&nbsp; How often do you have them with your spouse?&nbsp; What do you like to do?&nbsp; What was your favorite date night?<\/p>\n<p>I expected people to respond with some creative ideas, but I was surprised at the response.&nbsp; Nearly everyone said they have no date nights at all, or only rarely. &nbsp;Here\u2019s what some of the responders wrote:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin: 0 0 15px 1.5em\">\n<li style=\"padding-bottom:8px\"><em>Have not had a date night since November \u2026 Could be part of our issue.<\/em><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom:8px\"><em>Since we have four kids, nobody wants to babysit for us. Consequently, we get very few. Like, one every few months.<\/em><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom:8px\"><em>Currently 0.&nbsp; It&#8217;s truly hard having a demanding career like mine &#8230;&nbsp;<\/em><em>Big fat 0.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I was particularly sad, because date nights are so important to oneness in marriage.&nbsp; Will you trust me on this?&nbsp; I\u2019ve been married for 30 years, and my husband and I still love our date nights.&nbsp; I look forward to them and treasure them.<br \/>\n<div class=\"fl-article-cta\"><div class=\"fl-article-cta-wrapper\"><a class='fl-article-cta-button' style='margin-top: 15px; visibility: visible; background-color: #f3bd48 !important;' target='_blank' href='https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/learn\/financial-freedom-for-couples\/' data-color-override='false' data-hover-color-override='false' data-hover-text-color-override='#fff'><span>Grab our new online course on Financial Freedom for Couples!<i class='fa fas fa-long-arrow-right'><\/i><\/span> <\/a> <\/div> <\/div><br \/>\nI\u2019m not talking about expensive, fancy, spend a lot, dressing up, rent-a-limo kind of events. (Although that might be fun sometimes.)&nbsp; What I\u2019m talking about is a once-a-week date with your spouse to communicate with each other. The purpose of date night is to communicate and connect emotionally. &nbsp;I\u2019m reminded of what Solomon said to his bride in Song of Solomon:&nbsp; \u201cArise, my love, my beautiful one,&nbsp;and come away.<sup>&nbsp;<\/sup>O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice\u201d (2:13-14).<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"font-size: 30px;margin-bottom:15px;line-height:1.1em\">Ideas for Reclaiming Date Night<\/h2>\n<p>When my husband and I had little ones in the house, we had a limited amount of money to spend on dates.&nbsp; A typical evening out for us would involve picking up dinner at a fast-food Mexican drive-through, taking that food to a park, eating together, and then driving to a spot to watch the sun go down.&nbsp; As for the kids, we had a group of friends at church with whom we took turns babysitting children.&nbsp; At other times, we paid a teenage girl to babysit.&nbsp; On those evenings, we ate even more inexpensively.&nbsp; But we got out, just the two of us; we talked, shared, and it made a difference for our marriage.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes my husband and I would go out just for coffee and walk in the park, or go to an art exhibit. There were times our church offered \u201cParents\u2019 Night Out\u201d with a few hours of babysitting, free to the parents.&nbsp; Sometimes we would drop the kids off for a play date during the day, and we would go out for lunch.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t be shy about asking your parents or in-laws to babysit.&nbsp; Try to connect with older couples in your church.&nbsp; Some of them can be considered \u201cveterans\u201d in childcare, and they might be just the ticket for babysitting occasionally.&nbsp; There are a lot of things out there to do, if we, as couples, are intentional, creative, and committed.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"font-size: 30px;margin-bottom:15px;line-height:1.1em\">Date Nights are Important<\/h2>\n<p>Dates are important for every couple, no matter what stage of family life you are in.&nbsp; If date nights are not part of your schedule, consider talking to your spouse to say you miss dating and want to connect again on that emotional level.&nbsp; Intentional sharing and meaningful time together are a <em>must<\/em>.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><em>Copyright \u00a9 2013 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For date night ideas, check out&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/shop.familylife.com\/p-4180-simply-romantic-dates-on-a-dime.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Simply Romantic\u00ae Dates on a Dime<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Intentional sharing and meaningful time together are too important to the health of your marriage to be neglected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":8198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Reclaiming Date Night | FamilyLife\u00ae","_seopress_titles_desc":"Dates are important for every couple, no matter what stage of family life you are in.\u00a0","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2082],"tags":[],"equip-category":[],"cwp_profile":[3180],"class_list":["post-8081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","cwp_profile-suzanne-thomas"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2018\/04\/3-ways-to-recapture-the-romance-1040x326-1.jpg","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2018\/04\/3-ways-to-recapture-the-romance-1040x326-1.jpg",1024,321,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"david@sierra.host","author_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/author\/davidsierra-host\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Intentional sharing and meaningful time together are too important to the health of your marriage to be neglected.","meta_box":{"_cloudsearch_visibility":"","profile_obj_manual_select":false,"profile_obj":false,"separator":false,"enable_link":false,"login_restricted":"","content_type":"","disclaimer_banner":"","currency":false,"pricing_subtext":false,"element_type":false,"date_field":false,"date_format":false,"theme_header_position":"","post_header_is_sticky":"","is_header_overlay":"","series":false,"ignore_sticky":false,"conditional_blocks_category":false,"cta_selection":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8081"},{"taxonomy":"equip-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/equip-category?post=8081"},{"taxonomy":"cwp_profile","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cwp_profile?post=8081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}