To keep that love alive and the home fires burning, you need to date your mate. Date them and forget about the To Do list that hangs over your head even when it’s out of sight. Make the time to forget about the 1,000 things you have to do before the month is over and especially do not discuss your kids when you’re together. Like, pretend you don’t even know them. Little Mark, Jr. who? If you follow this advice you will remember once again, just why you are together. A bottle of wine, no – two, will help bring back smoky memories of the carefree love you shared way back when.
We have been married 20 years, and we are so due for a date night that we’d need six months at a monk’s retreat to silence these buzzing brains from trying to balance life. With this not-dating guilt in mind, I decided to give Date Night a try after an article I saw as I flipped through a magazine while waiting to get my prescription for dry eye syndrome.
The whole half page was glossy with exclamation marks for quick and easy love tips for the married crowd! *By the way, not today, but sometime soon, I’d like to talk about why only women’s magazines are DATE NIGHT DATE NIGHT KEEP YOUR DATE HAPPY and men’s magazines are “Get yourself this car, belt, shoes, vacation and you be you, dude.”
Starting with Idea No. 1 and all the way to Idea No. 7, I felt a tingle of high hopes. Well not really, but I had a flash that at least one of these would be hot fun. Poke the flames, yannow?
Yeah no.
Here’s what goes wrong when you’re two decades into chronically unromantic:
Idea 1.) “Short on time or money? No problem! Here’s a quick and easy way to stoke those embers! (am I the only one so far going ewwww… ) Pick a new board game to play!”
What actually happened: We brought out the game. Something calledOthello. I got dizzy as soon as I saw all the black and white discs and the reversible board and the 10-page instruction booklet. I had to put my head down. Meanwhile, since my husband wanted to go to bed before sunrise, he became “order-y” and saw it as one more job to delegate.
Date Night Idea #1: a bust. Let’s move on …
Idea 2.) “Pick a theme! Have fun enjoying “Irish Night” or “French Night!”(again, pretty sure it’s just me, but ewwww with fake accents)
I did all right with this one. And for future reference, I told my husband the only love language for me is Jalisco’s Mexican take-out. With wilting Styrofoam containers opened up on our laps, we sat and watched Nacho Libre. Then we both fell asleep on the Costco chaise-o-lounger with salsa stains on our chests. Fun? I guess it was a bit of all right.
Idea 3.) “Pop in your wedding video, look at your honeymoon pictures! Here’s some exclamation marks to get you started!”
Oh my god oh my god oh my god. Idea #3 gets my vote for worst idea ever. THE WORST. What’s hot about looking at my stomach so flat and my husband’s hair so dark? We both got sad-eyed and gobsmacked about how we had no idea we looked so good that we wondered why the hell didn’t we just walk around nekkid back then?
Dang, we were hot. (Me: He was lucky to get me. Him: She was lucky to get me)
Idea 4.) “Feed the kids an early dinner and put them to bed!”
Still laughing about this one. Since we don’t believe in Benadryl for dessert, the only ones that would be going to bed after an early dinner would be me and Mark.
Idea 5.) “Slumber Party! Pile blankets on the floor along with throw pillows and have a sleep over!”
Ummm, we already do this. Substitute piles of newspapers for throw pillows and the book we’re reading for a blanket, and pretty much, there’s our *Slumber Party!*
Idea 6.) “1-2-3 Get artsy! Grab a canvas and brushes and co-paint a picture together!”
I’ll tell you right here and now, if my husband wanted to grab a paintbrush then I’d have no need to work 2.5 part-time jobs so I could call Rob the Painter every two years for the past ten years to paint the walls in this house.
Idea 7.) “Make a platter of favorite snacks! Pop some kettle corn and cozy up for a movie!”
What?! Now I’m the one handing out exclamation marks.
Snacks and a movie? Why didn’t you say so 7 steps back?! Turns out we’ve been date-nighting for the past 20 years!
It’s just like this dang world to try and make us think we have to change what we’ve been doing when what we’ve been doing, is right all along.
(This post originally ran on Good Day, Regular People)
About the author: Alexandra Rosas is a contributing author to the Listen To Your Mother anthology, among others. She is a Babble Top 100 Mom and a BlogHer Voice of The Year four years running. Her writing has appeared on The Huffington Post and BlogHer. Alexandra also presents with The Moth’s National Live StoryTeller’s Tour and is co-producer of the Listen To Your Mother Show Milwaukee. A regular contributor to Milwaukee Public Radio, you can follow her on her personal blog Good Day Regular People.