We got to go to a leader dinner tonight at church for the marriage ministry we are a part of. It was really nice. Mostly because I didn't have to cook dinner and we got to sit next to Candy and Josh. But it's still nice to be a room full of people who are committed to helping people prioritize their marriages.
They showed a video of an interview they did with a man who came and spoke at our church last fall about marriage. He's a pastor in Missouri and hilarious. So he had lots of really insightful things to say about marriage, but I got hung up on one thing. He said he and his wife do three things to keep their marriage healthy. A daily "meeting" where they just connect for 15-30 minutes, a weekly date and an annual trip just the two of them. I'm down with the daily meeting and the annual trip, but how on earth can a couple get a weekly date night? Especially a couple with young children. The money for a sitter alone, never mind the cost of a date, prices us right out. Jason made the point that we could do a babysitting swap with another couple. But to do a weekly date night and give that couple a date night is two nights a week. Then you add the one night a week for small group and you have us gone from home 3 nights a week. Add a little bit of just life and other commitments and we could be looking at a week where we have something on the calendar 4 out of 7 nights. That does not seem like fun to me.
Don't get me wrong, the idea of having a weekly date night with Jason sounds lovely. But I just don't see how that is workable right now. We are lucky to get one date night a month. And lately our "date nights" consist of nights where we have something at church together (like tonight). I can't think of the last time we had a true date night–where we went to dinner or a movie or coffee. Let's see...over Thanksgiving we went to the movies while we were in Florida with my parents. And we had an event at church before Christmas that we got a sitter for. Yep, that was our last "date."
A weekly date night.
I guess it's something to shoot for. Maybe we should start with quarterly date nights and work our way up.
2 comments:
I'm with you, sister. I was thinking maybe they do their weekly date when their kids are at school. We could start a swap once a month -- which is better than once a quarter but not up to once a week. Or maybe we need to figure out how to do date nights at home after the kids are asleep. You know, when I'm ready to go to bed. :)
Ryan and I leave for our small group night a little earlier than is necessary, and we grab coffee or a cheap/quick dinner. We've squeezed in some QT that way!
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