Date Nights, Vacations, and Couple Retreats – Why Are They so Important

I have a date with a hot man tonight.  I put on my party dress, favorite fragrance, and shake my hair out of my typical ponytail.  I look with desire and longing into my lovers brown eyes across the candlelight table… I remember why I married this gorgeous, loving man years ago.

Importance of date night in a relationship

   When you are in the trenches, raising children with limited time and resources, you don’t comprehend that someday it will just be the two of you, enjoying each other.  

Every marriage therapist in America agrees that a weekly date night and couple trips away from the children are required to reconnect and thrive in a marriage.

What is date night for married couples?

The “date night” commandment is both seemingly impossible and profoundly important and simple.  What is date night for married couples? Date nights help water the marriage plant by re-examining the roots, fertilizing the soil and giving it sunlight and water necessary to grow.  

However, many of us put date nights on the back burner of family life. No date nights with husband when many demands of child rearing, limited resources, babysitters overwhelm you? No! Just do it anyway!  

Without date night for couples to nurture their marriage, they become like roommates.  Arguments over who last emptied the dishwasher, and conflicts over the electric bill, result in the sacred the team breaking down often with one or both partners feeling neglected.

What should a date night entail?

So, what is date night for married couples? Going to movies, therapy or doing taxes?  No therapist would advise a movie night out, completing overdue taxes or even couples’ therapy as the best date night ideas.  

Moreover, date nights are not the time to debate and focus on your partner’s shortcomings and character flaws.  

Perhaps focusing on your union might bring up issues and differences, date nights are supposed to be light and FUN!

Making date nights a priority

Rather, a Staycation overnight in a local hotel, a romantic picnic in the park, or a coffeehouse concert are better date night ideas if the goal is reconnection, intimacy, and yes even sex.  The healthiest marriages I know are the ones that make date night a weekly priority throughout marriage.

A busy neurosurgeon and his wife have a weekly date night to catch up with each other and discuss their 5 children from a blended marriage.  They are determined to get it right the second time around. This couple is disappointed when inevitable conflicts arise on their weekly date night.  

Looking back on our marriage, I realize that my sweet husband did not have the ability to multi task the roles and demands of being the family breadwinner, father to 3 children, son to aging parents, and attentive husband.  I don’t think he is rare in this regard.

Now that my husband is semi-retired, he is able to give the quality time and focus necessary to continue growing our marriage.  I feel fortunate to have “hung in there” throughout the roller coaster ride of marriage and feel the best years of marriage are yet to come.  

However, I wish I had insisted on weekly date nights to calm and steady the marriage ride.  The payoff is priceless. Date nights are the catalyst to really see and know your spouse and to continue celebrating each moment of marriage.

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Julie Carbery Licensed Professional Counselor

Dr. Carbery has over 30 years experience, counseling children, adolescents and co-parents.  She considers herself an advocate for children and testifies in court as an expert witness on children’s issues. Julie loves to assist couples in building strong, divorce-proofed marriages and structured,... Read more loving family homes where children thrive.  She has 3 children and has been married to Jeff for 35 years. Read less

(Julie Carbery is also listed in Best Marriage Therapists in Dallas)