“So we’re supposed to plot out our level of marital satisfaction, starting when we were newlyweds all the way to today…,” my voice trailed off.
I knew where this was going. After all, this chart was in The Marriage Checkup book my husband had picked up earlier in the week, and if your husband is picking up a book by that title, you know things aren’t stellar. We were coming up on our ninth anniversary, and had four kids ages 4 and under, so it was no wonder that our marriage wasn’t at an all time high on the satisfaction scale.
Parenting is hard. These little human beings suck the energy right out of you, and then use it themselves to run around your house, shrieking and laughing like lunatics while you try to muster up the energy to ask them to chill out, just a tiny bit. After you finally wrestle them all into bed, you gather up one last bit of energy to straighten up the house, before collapsing onto the couch in utter exhaustion.
We weren’t fighting – we just weren’t communicating much more than to ask for help with this kid, or that chore, or any number of any other dull things. Parenting life wasn’t dull, but married life sure was heading rapidly into the “dull” category.
A date night sounds like a great idea – let someone else wrestle the crazies into bed, while you and your spouse enjoy a meal you can eat at a normal pace, and is actually still hot! Glorious! Sadly, we can’t always live that dream – it’s hard finding a sitter you love (and good help ain’t cheap!), and if you have family in town you don’t want to overuse them.
Looking at our little marital satisfaction line, and seeing it’s peaks and valleys, before bottoming out at our new all-time low, my husband had an idea. He called it “Marriage Enrichment,” but we’ll just call it “At Home Date Night!”
This is simple.
This is cheap.
This is so easy that everyone should be doing it.
Step 1: Pick a date on your calendar. It should be a day you know you’ll both be home at a reasonable time, there are no kid activities going on, and you can hustle to get the kids into bed on time at the very least (we often shot for early, when the kids were younger!).
Sept 2: Decide which of you will be in charge of planning. We always rotated each month, in order to keep things fair. For a little extra fun, we also never told the other what “the plan” was for that evening!
Step 3: Set a budget. Ours started out at just $10, but we recently decided to bump it up to a whole $15 (woo!). Think of how creative you have to be when you’re trying to only spend $10!
Step 4: Set ground rules. Our big one? No movies! We spend enough time sitting on the couch, with glazed over eyes (please refer back to the energy-sucking offspring and how tired they make us), so we avoid intentionally doing that at all costs!
Step 5: Plan and execute! This is the fun part, but sometimes it’s hard to get the ball rolling, so I’ll be nice and throw out some ideas for you….
- Have a “Throw Back” night! Think about what kinds of things you did when you were poor newly weds. Us? We played a heck of a lot of Mario Kart on our very old Super Nintendo when we first got married. So one night (when I was in charge of the evening) I ran out to pick up some take-out Chinese for us, while Nick put the kids to bed, and then we played Mario Kart on the Wii. Fun and interactive with all the smack talk that was going on.
- Grab a favorite, indulgent snack, and break out the board games! Plenty of time for casual conversation, in between collecting rent, playing cards, or rolling dice.
- Make S’mores! Before we had our fire pit, we would pull out this sweet s’more maker kit that my grandparents had given us as a wedding gift. Think how cozy it would be on a fall evening to get a fire going, snuggle up next to each other and make s’mores! You really have to make sure the kids are asleep though, because imagine the epic tantrum that would come if they caught you making s’mores without them.
- Have a nicer, candle-lit dinner, after the children are in bed of course! Use your budget money to buy a cut of meat you wouldn’t usually spring for when the whole family is eating, and enjoy eating your food when it’s still hot.
- Find a delightfully racy game to play! I kid you not – a quick search of “kissing games for couples” will bring you all kinds of, uh, interesting options.
- Find a quiz or two to take; find out each other’s Love Languages for example!
So there you have it – super simple ways to bring more conversation and fun back into your relationship. It’s been almost four years since my husband had that great idea, and we still love incorporating at home dates into our life when needed.
Have a great at home date idea? Share the wealth, and throw it out in the comments below!
