As I connect with married moms I hear loud and clear your desire to have a date night with your husbands! I get it and I applaud you for knowing that dating your husband, while parenting, should be a priority.
Do you, too, long for the opportunity to have a date night with your spouse? Do you feel cheated because you cannot manage to get out of the house and date night just keeps not happening?
I have some very good news: You do not have to leave the house to have a date night!
Really! Allow me to explain.
Years ago hubby and I were more than a bit frustrated that we could not have date nights. Our corporate moves kept us away from family, and not knowing our new friends and neighbors well meant we just didn’t feel comfortable leaving our children in their care. So, we came up with a brilliant solution to have Friday night date night . . . at home!
For me, the best part of going out on a date is not having to cook, so we made the decision to make our date nights include takeout from a local restaurant. Hubby would place the order before he left work and stop and get our meals on the way home.
I would make sure to have pizza and a movie for the kids. Since we generally don’t watch a lot of TV, for my kids to know that every Friday they got to have a picnic on the floor and watch a movie made us the best parents ever!
The dining room table would be set with candles burning and china waiting. Hubby would call when he was on his way, and the kids’ floor picnic would get set up as their pizza went in the oven. Excitement was in the air for the whole family!
We all looked forward to and celebrated date night!
The kids got a couple of hours without us . . . we got a couple of hours without them. Well, not exactly, as they would frequently peek around the corner and giggle and ask us if we were kissing and being all in love and stuff!
Honestly, I think they enjoyed seeing us making time for each other and loving each other more than we enjoyed the time together. Well, maybe not more than, but definitely as much as!
You may need to set your expectations a little lower than the fresh-from-the-oven delicacies placed before you at a private restaurant, and you need to anticipate that you may be interrupted a couple of times by little voices, but really none of that matters. What does matter is that you are making time for each other and you are modeling for your children the importance of and the value you place on your marriage relationship.
So, how about it? If you are reading this post, I challenge you to start Friday night date night at your home.
It might please you to know that even as our children have gotten older, we continue to have Friday night date night at home most weekends—it continues to be quite obvious they enjoy seeing us loving each other, and I am guessing some day they will celebrate date night with their spouses!
Welcome to Be the Mom! I’m so excited you’re here. Be sure you’re following me on Facebook and Twitter for updates throughout the day! Need some daily fun MOMent ideas? Sign up to get one a day in your inbox!
Leave a Reply