Before we had kids, my husband and I use to do such a lot of things together – we use to go away for weekends, go out every second night for dinner and just enjoy life as a childless couple. But things changed the day our first child was born, we had to prioritise our time around her. When the second child arrived three years later there was even more responsibility and less time for what we wanted to do. So strictly speaking there was no time. Yes the odd wedding we would be invited to or braai at a friend’s place would see us asking our parents to baby sit but we kind of never prioritised time for each other.
So four years ago when our youngest daughter started play school, we decided to make US a priority again and to invest in our relationship with “time”. Time for just us. Throughout our very busy lives, it was something we had to pencil in on the calendar. Even though we initially decided to do it every second week then became only once a month and sometimes it had to be rescheduled due to some unforeseen event. But through all of this, we manage to fit it in and reclaim our time for each.
At first my daughters couldn’t understand why we wanted to go on a date night without them – they were like “you already married so why do you want to date, shouldn’t you have done that before you got married“.
So what is a date night/afternoon/day or just a plain simple date? A date with my husband is time set aside to just focus on each other. To have a real conversation without our focus shifting to the kids. It is a time to connect on all levels and basically just enjoy each others presence and company.
When is it not a date night? Well you can’t really classify a night out with friends as a date night, because you end up having laughs with your girlfriends and he spends time with the guys.
Date nights or whatever you may call it, shouldn’t be expensive or elaborate. It can be a simple dinner for two at a restaurant – an afternoon coffee date at coffee shop – a movie – going out and do some wine tasting – it can be jogging together or going for a power walk together – or even just time spent at home alone without the kids. There are so many great ideas of things that you can do together.
This section of my blog will feature things that my husband and I do together.