When you’ve been married a few years, relationships definitely change. Whether it is work life, bills, goals, kids & tight schedules, a toll gets taken on the relationship. Stress can cause all sorts of problems ranging from communication obstacles, weight struggles, and loss of sense of self. Even positive relationships need work to maintain them and keep a couple focused on the actual relationship verses being focused on their life.
It’s important to “date” your spouse no matter how long you’ve been together. The 7 -year- itch does truly exist, so it’s especially good to be mindful of the self-care of the marriage when it starts getting up in years.
Very often, couples get into routines with each other and if they have kids, they can often lose sight of themselves as a romantic pair altogether. They spend so much time with their ‘parent hat’ on, they can easily forget that they need to put their ‘partner hat’ back on every once in a while. When the partnership gets tended to, the relationship feels balanced. People in general, report higher rates of self-satisfaction when they feel loved and cared for. When people are in regular scheduled routines of behavior, they often lose sight of the benefits affectionate love can have on them. When you get a couple to take a break from their everyday routine to take time to focus solely on themselves as a couple, they report higher rates of emotional satisfaction in their relationship.
Some Date Night Suggestions:.
- The couple can set up rules of conversation around their date. For instance – Once they leave the house, there will be no discussion of kids, schedules, or problems they might be having. This keeps the focus on connecting with each other.
- They can do a “Q & A” over dinner – asking each other questions about their lives to stay connected : “what would be your dream vacation?” , “who would you say is your current best friend & why?”, “what was the funniest story you heard lately?”
- They can schedule a regular “Date Night” or even a night away from home monthly to keep them looking forward to their “alone time”.
- Pick a new place to go on each date, to keep it interesting.
- Take turns with your partner planning the date