four essentials for date night with your spouse

As a military spouse, I know that quality time with my husband can sometimes be limited. Many times our service members are in the field, deployed, or going TDY, making it difficult to spend the time we want or need with our loved ones.

One of the best ways that I have found to get that time in is to designate a date night with my spouse.  When we can, we try making this a weekly thing, but lately that has proven difficult, so we just try to have a date night whenever possible. Don’t get frustrated if you can’t do it on a regular basis.  Just make a dedicated effort to do so and eventually you will get into your own schedule for date night.

Here are some date night essentials that I have come up with:

1. Designate at least one night as date night.

Both parties get home early enough to do something together on that particular night. Try not to make plans with other people.  Just make the night for you and your spouse. You can plan a couples date night for other days of the week if desired.

2. No electronic devices allowed!

I know this may sound harsh, but you should have face-to-face time, not Facebook time with each other. The date is supposed to be a time to reconnect to each other without interference. So put your phone away, and take this time and hold each other’s hands.

3. Do something you both enjoy.

This can be anything that both of you enjoy doing together. If you have difficulty coming up with something, here are some things that I enjoy doing on date night:

• Going to dinner
• Rock climbing
• Riding bikes
• Walking around downtown
• Attending a cooking class
• Starting a dance class together
• Making dinner together (my favorite one!)
• Going see a movie

4. Enjoy your time together.

There is nothing I like more than getting the butterflies in my stomach when I get ready to go on a fancy date with my husband. It is so much fun to reconnect to why you were attracted to your spouse to begin with and get that same feeling you had when you first met. It is intoxicating, so enjoy the moment!

Remember date night doesn’t always have to be at night. Feel free to take a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and go do something together.

So are you ready yet to make your plans for date night? Tell us how you spend quality time with your spouse in the comments below.