In the muddied waters of the new corona virus culture, various external stressors limit romance, specifically as it relates to regular date nights: babysitter availability, discretionary budget issues, exposure concerns, and scheduling conflicts. Enter “date night in” – a way to remove a few of these stressors and place the spotlight on romantic love once again. All it takes is a bit of flexibility, creativity, and forethought to take time for your partner and invest in your most important relationship. As Valentine’s day approaches, here are a few tips to rethink traditional date night norms.
Planning and scheduling
To make a regular date night at home a reality, a certain amount of planning and scheduling must take place. Placing a date night on everyone’s calendar and making it official is essential to any date night’s success, and an at home date night is no difference. Plan it, schedule it, and look forward to it. Write it down, and be specific about the time of day you’re going to begin the date night at home. Creating some excitement about an out-of-the-ordinary evening (or morning or afternoon) allows both partners to anticipate the date night and think about it ahead of time.
Investing in a space with the intention of creating a permanent date night spot can set the tone for weekly connections. “We bought a fire pot for our front yard, and we’ll go out there at night to talk and have a drink,” said Kristen Potter, a North Naples mom of 4.
Depending upon napping schedules, an early afternoon date may be advisable. At the end of the day, many parents are spent, and the idea of a special evening at home seems out of reach. Enter the naptime date. Favorite snacks and an afternoon beer around the dining room table may be the most attainable date situation.
Unconventional Babysitting
To get time alone with your spouse, think beyond the bounds of a conventional babysitting situation. Paying for a few hours of childcare ratchets up the date night’s expense. It makes a regular date night inadvisable financially for the majority of couples, relegating that essential activity to evenings that require attendance (special events, work parties, and weddings).
However, date nights needn’t take place just a few times a year. Special evenings and romantic connection can become a marital pattern if we put forth the effort and think creatively.
- Share the load with another couple. This seems to work best for families within the same neighborhood. Dropping off children to another family for a couple hours on a Saturday or Sunday late afternoon allows for a free-of-charge, kid-free date.
- Exhaust your list of family members. Many of your family members adore the opportunity for connection with your children – on their terms. Take what they’re willing to give, even if it’s just an hour at their home so you and your spouse can grab coffee together.
- Utilize middle schoolers. Know any neighbors with middle school-aged children who are interested in gaining some experience? See if you might drop your children off to that family’s home. This has worked so well for us. A friend’s daughter watches my daughter on Sunday evenings for two hours at her own home. The parents are there only if necessary, and it gives my husband and me the chance to go to a quick happy hour and talk before the week begins. The rate we pay reflects her age and experience level, and it makes a couple hours of babysitting on a regular basis attainable financially.
- Take opportunities for mother’s helper situations. Again, paying a mother’s helper is often $5 an hour, at the most. Schedule a mother’s helper for a time when you and your spouse are both at home, and retreat to a secluded area of your house or yard to talk. Plan the food, drinks, and snacks and invest in one another. We paid a 10-year-old in our neighborhood $5 an hour to watch our daughter in our local park while my husband and I played tennis. It was glorious – we had so much fun hanging out together!
- Use the screens to your advantage. If there’s any time to use the screen, it’s a date night in. Rent a movie your kids will love, and get them set up in one of their bedrooms. “We put our kids in the master bedroom for date nights in. We’ve even had other couples over for dinner while our kids are upstairs in our room. They have access to us, but they know that it’s our time – it’s our date,” explained Jenna Berry, a Naples mom of three.
Fancy Food for Less
It’s better to be a producer than a consumer. Making delicious, out of the ordinary food doesn’t have to involve expensive, hard-to-find
ingredients or a culinary course. Online tutorials and cajillions of recipes are at our fingertips. I find it’s best to pick one item to make – overdoing a date night in usually creates unnecessary stress over cooking and dirty dishes. Here are a few of our favorite date night foods:
- Charcuterie boards. There are so many ideas for creating yummy boards online. You don’t need that many items: one or two fancy cheeses, crackers, sliced veggies, and a sliced meat.
- Hot appetizers. Think pub food – stuffed mushrooms, oven-fried zucchini spears dipped in marinara, flatbread, or baked frozen onion rings with chipotle ranch, to name a few. Make one and buy one. A platter of these foods to share makes any evening feel fun and indulgent.
- Dessert flights. Create an ice cream sampler to share or purchase a small dessert or two from a local bakery.
- Take out. Ordering take out can be affordable, especially when compared to going to a sit-down restaurant combined with paying for a babysitter. To lower the cost of take-out for a date night in, make your children frozen food, avoid delivery charges, and consider lower-cost grab and go from local markets or walk-up places. Keep your expectations in check – remember to place the emphasis on the connection with your spouse and the situation itself. I’ll eat just about anything if it means I don’t have to cook or do dishes.
- Drinks. Create a signature drink to accompany your date night at home. Purchasing a bottle of something new can make an ordinary night feel so special – plus you can use it for future nights in. To take another tack, consider patronizing a local brewery for a growler.
Intentional Connection
When we consider our relationships with our spouses, I think most of us understand the value of creating connection on a regular basis. During the shutdowns earlier in the year, many of us recognized how essential it was to invest in our most important relationship. In the midst of intense external stressors, we had to get creative. That need for investment, creativity, and connection remains. It’s vital to the health of our marriages. How can we continue to connect more fully and with greater intention, even as many of these external stressors remain almost a year later?
- Connection. There are a million idea online of ways to go about promoting connection. Laughing together and creating memorable moments takes a bit of planning, but it pays dividends. “We have a weekly family meeting on Sunday nights to go over scheduling and expectations for the week,” said Katie Walker, a Naples mom of 3 boys. “After our meeting, Shane and I will take on a time together for ourselves and take a golf cart ride or sit beside the pool to talk about our week. It’s nothing official, but It’s helped us connect on a regular basis.”
- Forgiveness. Ruth Bell Graham once said that a healthy marriage was a union of two good forgivers. We’re all broken, we’re all longing for something, and we all hurt each other on a regular basis. Offering forgiveness freely for the little offenses creates a positive environment. Refuse to keep score over the tiny things that add up so quickly. It’ll make date nights way better!
- Games, activities and hobbies. Playing games or pursuing shared interests allows for connection, and for memorable, exciting moments to take place with your spouse. Am I suggesting my husband learn to knit to spend more time with me and connect more fully? Of course not! Do I have to fiberglass a skiff so we can build a boat together? Or tie flies at the kitchen table? Nope, not a chance. However, my willingness to go fishing in Rookery Bay or his willingness to run a few miles in our neighborhood with me contributes significantly to the health of our relationship. Julia Straub, a Naples mom of 4, explained that she and her spouse put their children to bed by 7:30 p.m. and will sometimes save their own dinner to eat together. “My love language is quality time, and he loves watching college basketball. So, we sit and eat together and spend time with each other – it’s definitely a highlight.”