Date Night Advice


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My wife and I have been married for almost 14 years, together for almost 21. We've reached a point in our marriage where we really want to start strengthening it again, and are doing so in the form of a regular—hopefully at least monthly—date night. Unfortunately, we're having some difficulty figuring out exactly what to do.

• While we'd love to go to the temple more often, the nine-hour round trip makes that an impractical date night, to say the least.

• Going out to eat is always nice, but my wife has severe dietary restrictions that make eating out rather unenjoyable for her; and forget getting dessert later: she can't lie down for three hours after eating, so she generally refuses anything after dinner.

• Going to a movie would be fine, but there's so rarely anything good playing, particularly not something worth spending $20+ to see. (Not to mention the fact that she can't have popcorn or any other snacks—see above—so out of love for her, neither do I.)

• Watching a movie at home would be fine, but that's so similar to what we do every night, it wouldn't feel like a date at all.

• Mini-golf and bowling both work, but we're frankly burned out on both of those options.

So… any ideas? We really need this time together, but we honestly don't know what to do. When we were newlyweds, we'd even do silly stuff like drive all over town looking for an A&W machine or whatever; but even if A&W machines still existed, she can't have carbonated drinks. (It's amazing how completely it affects your life when you're effectively allergic to all food and drink.)

Please help! Thanks in advance! :)

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Is a museum an option? Obviously it's not exactly an every date night option, but one can go when interesting exhibits roll in. It is rather location dependent, lots of places don't have good museums. Going for walks or hikes is another option, but also weather and location dependent, same with doing a picnic (lets you tailor the food).

If you live in a decent size city (or near one), take a look at the city website, they usually have a listing of attractions that you can mine for ideas, particularly when they provide calendars of events.

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What size of town do you live in? Right now we're getting into the holiday months and there are a lot of seasonal things going on.

For this month, October, we've gone to a different pumpkin patch every weekend.

Do you have a free newspaper in your area. A lot of time those include a calendar of events. Some things we've had recently around here are a Greek festival, days at a state park where the rangers teach the history of the area, and a bonsai show held at the local senior center.

Are there places for hikes in your area? We usually just walk around parks (kids parks) and enjoy the different scenery.

Do you have any local farms or orchards that are open to the public? How about a local aviary?

I also like to go the pet store with my husband. We're not looking for new pets, but it's fun to look at the animals and different little fish tank set ups.

How about taking turns picking places to drive to? Get some special music for the drive, bring a snack that your wife can enjoy (don't let her know you brought it until you get there) and just sit back, drive and talk to each other.

How about getting some different music, some candles and massage oil and treat your wife to a night all about her? Maybe in the living room if you usually retire to the bedroom? Spice things up.

Thrift stores. We used to go to them all the time. It was fun looking at the different random nick knacks. Some stores were really boring and some surprisingly nice and fun.

Walk in the mall, or downtown. Window shop, holding hands and talking.

Local high school sports games. I'll probably never go to one ever again because I was in band in high school and sporting events became something I loathed, but it could be fun for you guys!

And one last suggestion. It's not so much of a date, but a fun way to spend time together. Play some card games. Or, perhaps some board games. I love doing this with my husband. This is kind of random, and your wife probably can't have french fries, but it can be done with any food where you have a bunch of the item. Share the food, lay them all out and take turns picking one to eat. I love guessing which one he'll pick. It amuses me when he picks the one I was going to eat. I know it sounds a little random, and maybe you're not as weird as me, but i Love doing this.

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My wife and I are currently taking a dance class together. So consider a variety of classes you can take: art, photography, dance, etc. Also, college classes can be fun together.

You might also look at other sports and activities, such as disc golf (one of my favorites, and one my wife occasionally joins in on).

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Lots of good ideas above.

I would second the idea of a hike or walk in a nice park, that is always good if you enjoy it. We tend to be outdoors people so that works well for us or canoing, snowshoeing etc. A couple of others that we have enjoyed.

If you have kids and can get them out of the house, then baking cookies together is fun, though at our house that generally means food fight, followed by a clean up shower.......anyway, I digress

A shopping trip for the next upcoming kids or parents birthday or Christmas can be fun....you get the chance to talk and interact and get something done that the same time.

We collect corvettes so sometimes it is as simple as working together to clean one of them, or go for a drive, or to a local car show or cruise night.

Picnics are good in nice weather.

We've gone to the library before to pick out a book together and then spend the several nights following alternating reading a chapter together. You may want to look into "And they were not ashamed" the homework in that one can be fun.

Rameumptom had some good ideas on taking a class together which can be fun and ongoing.

We tend to steer away from date nights where we don't interact and talk. For example, the temple is great but other than the drive there and back, or some time in the Celestial Room, we don't really connect or talk....your results of course may differ. Movies are the same way for us....we are together, but not really connecting. So we tend to like to DO things together.

Best of luck. It sounds like you have a worthwhile goal....I think the most important thing is to find things that both of you enjoy, or things that you haven't done that would be exciting for each of you to try.

-RM

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Thanks to everyone for the great suggestions so far. We live in a decent-sized area—Lafayette and West Lafayette, Indiana, have a combined population of about 170K—but the populace still hasn’t gotten the idea that being an hour from Indianapolis doesn’t mean we’re “close enough” for a lot of things. Still, not a bad place to live.

Dravin, we do have a small art museum in the area. We do need to go there, sometime, but it’s only open weekdays from 11:00 AM–4:00 PM, so definitely not a date-night option. Great idea checking the city web site, though!

Blocky, we’d actually hoped to go to a local pumpkin patch and corn maze, this past weekend, but then my sister-in-law (our babysitter) got sick and that idea went out the window. She and her husband still watched the kids (she’s amazing :)), but we cut our date short, for her sake. Lots of great ideas there, though. We’ve often gone to various stores, and will sometimes go to the mall and just walk around or even just sit and watch people for a while. So, yeah, that’s right up our alley. Thank you!

Rameumptom, another awesome idea. We’d have to budget for that, but it would definitely shake things up a bit! :)

RMGuy, yes, we have three living kids, ages 5; 4; and 2 months. As for making cookies, I’d love that, but I think it would currently be more hurtful than anything. (Dang promised healing that hasn’t come yet. :confused:) Still, also some very creative stuff. We’ve definitely done the shopping-as-a-date thing, too, although I think the library would be a great one. We used to read together, all the time; not so much lately, besides the scriptures.

Anyway, thanks to all that have participated, and if anyone else has any ideas, please keep them coming! This is great stuff! Thank you! :D

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Otter,

There's always things going on in Hendricks county, so just come on down sometime.

As for being in West Lafayette, if you don't mind hanging out with the young Perdue students, there are often lectures or other free/low cost activities going on around the school. And of course, you and your husband can just go to XXX for a glass of root beer.

Lots of interesting places, such as the battleground just north of you. Around Nov/Dec, hundreds of sand cranes will be stopping at Jasper-Pulaski for their trip south and again in February.

One hobby my wife and I have is nature photography. We drive all over Indiana and nearby states shooting things. Often we'll just pick an area, and drive around the back roads to find things to shoot. She likes old barns and mailboxes, while I stick mostly to landscapes and animals/birds. Very cheap once you buy a couple digital cameras (you HAVE to have one for your spouse, otherwise everytime you want to shoot something, they want the camera). For animal and bird shots, you'll want a camera with at least a 10X optical zoom, but you can find these at Walmart/KMart for under $200. On our trips, we've found an eagle's nest that we return to every Feb/March to see them caring for the new hatchlings, wonderful landscapes, hawks, deer, and a variety of birds. This led us to also become bird watchers, another excellent hobby.

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Living in Lafayette Indiana, you have a great opportunity to attend student productions of plays, musicals, or other theater/musical productions for low cost. You could also attend sports events (not the football or basketball as that could get costly with Big Ten schools).

Learn about a sport together then attend a sporting event with that sport. Or learn about a composer/piece of music and then attend a student production of such.

With little kids, you are going to be more limited in date nights. Sometimes you could have a "picnic" in your living room after the kids go to bed. Put the kids to bed, then lay down a blanket, light some candles and enjoy dessert together.

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We have a date night every Sunday. Usually I will cook a nice meal, consisting of whatever my wife is in the mood for, and she will cook the desert, which is whatever we both like.

Sometimes I will download a movie that she wants to watch, or we will go walk the beach.

Sometimes our date nights are as simple as looking around home improvement stores for ideas or playing video games.

We've found that a date night is more about our frame of mind than what we do.

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