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Why going on dates with your spouse is important

man and woman standing side by side during daytime

If you are like me, then you are probably busy. Life with all of its due dates, menial chores, and scheduled events floods your time and deprives you of your energy. When you do have “free time”, sometimes you are too tired to do anything but turn on Netflix and stare at a screen. So, if you are like me, you haven’t been on a real date with your spouse in a long time. On average, most couples report that it’s been about 5-10 weeks since their last date. (1)

A few Fridays ago, life seemed extremely bleak for me and I knew things had to change. I decided I NEEDED a regular date with my husband. I wasn’t expecting much, but what happened has made a huge difference in our relationship.

The catalyst

The instigating factor for me was reading a book by John Gottman: “Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work”. In this book, he proposes that one of the major reasons spouses divorce or become unhappy in their marriages is NOT that they don’t know how to communicate, but that they have lost the friendship with their partner. He proposes that you need to work on each other’s “love maps”. A love map is all of the little details about your partner that you store in your brain. Happy partners know all of the little details of each other’s lives. They know what is causing the other stress, who they dislike the most at work, what they love to do or not do, and the why behind all of these things. The secret is that these love maps are always changing. Because people are always changing. So if you don’t keep up to date on your partner, then you may be unwittingly growing farther apart.

The best part about having a detailed love map is that when you have a REALLY good friendship with your partner, you have positive sentiment override. Positive sentiment override is where your overarching view of your partner is positive. When you have positive sentiment override, you automatically give your partner the benefit of the doubt and little arguments don’t get out of hand. When you have detailed love maps and have an intense friendship, you interpret everything your partner does in a positive way.

So after reading this, I figured my relationship needed a bit more friendship time. The other factor that shoved me forward is that I am a stay-at-home mom and I was going CRAZY that day. My child had been sick that week and I really needed to get out. Away from my child. And who would I like to do that with? My husband.

The Date

So we found a babysitter, and went out that very night. We shared an ice cream and went hiking in the dark to an overlook of the city. What made it awesome was the fact that I had Gottman’s Love Map Questions in my pocket. We played a game where one person picks a number from 1- 60. The other person reads the questions (for example: What is my favorite song?). If you get it right, then you get the number of points associated with the question. If you get it wrong, no points.

With that 60 questions game, that evening became great. Although we only got through 7 questions, I felt like I learned a lot more about my husband. So, when I came home, I decided I was going to be regular about going on dates. For me, it is a necessity for my mental health and my relationship health.

My Excuses

What was holding me back from enjoying dates before? For me, it was these three things:

  1. Laziness – it is so much easier to just sit on the couch watching a movie after my child goes to bed than getting a babysitter and going out.
  2. Money – I didn’t think our budget allowed for babysitters’ paychecks.
  3. Not really having much to talk about. I don’t like having to rack my brain for subjects to talk about. And I don’t want to talk about our problems during dates.

Interesting enough, my husband’s excuses were slightly different:

  1. Laziness – the couch really is the way of least resistance.
  2. The belief that dates for Sage had to be exciting and surprising and big! When I heard this, I was quite shocked because I don’t expect this at all. But this is a popular notion currently – that dates have to be big and expensive – or nothing at all. Not true.

And what about you?

Now I’m not saying you have to go on a date every week. Or that if you do, there is 0% chance of getting divorced. And I’m not saying that sitting on the coach watching Netflix is inherently bad for your relationship. But what I am saying is that you need to actively work on building your friendship with your spouse. There is still much, MUCH more to learn about them. And the more you learn and understand, the more you will like them.

So what is holding you back from deepening your friendship with your spouse? How can you get your relationship to positive sentiment override?

(1) Stanley, S. M., Markman, H. J., & Whitton, S. (2002). Communication, conflict, and commitment: Insights on the foundations of relationship success from a national survey. Family Process, 41, 659-675.

#dates #marriage

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