Reimagining Date Night
Brent and Janis talk about the power of touch and teach you how to plan Date Nights that actually work!
Reimagining Date Night (Episode 9)
Brent and Janis talk about the power of touch and teach you how to plan Date Nights that actually work!
DATE NIGHT QUESTIONS
If we can’t talk about the kids or problems, what do we talk about?
If you could start a collection, and money was not an issue, what would you collect?
Who is someone you admire? What are the three qualities you see in their lives that impressed you?
What is the accomplishment you are most proud of in your life?
What is a positive habit you would like to add to your life?
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Which of your relationships with family or friends enriches your life? How?
What is your favorite day of the week and why?
Name three things you are grateful for in this season of our lives.
What was your favorite toy growing up?
What is one characteristic of each of your parents that you admire?
What is your favorite childhood memory?
Who would you like to meet that has passed away?
Who do you know that aged well and enjoyed life in their later years?
How have you grown emotionally/socially/spiritually in the last ten years?
What is your greatest fear?
What is your favorite memory of a tradition you had growing up?
If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?
What is the one quality or characteristic about your in-laws that you admire?
If you could choose any superpower, what would it be?
What is your biggest pet peeve? (Not related to your spouse)
What do you hope you will be remembered for after you die?
Describe your perfect day.
If money or time wasn’t an issue, what skill would you want to learn?
Describe a/some moment(s) in your life when you feel most alive.
If you could choose to relive one year of your life, which one would it be and why?
What would you like to do with our kids or other family members that would be fun or meaningful to you?
What are you looking forward to in the next ten years?
What are you looking forward to tomorrow?
What is your favorite memory of the two of us?
What attracted you to me when we first met?
Where is one place you have traveled that you want to return?
What is your most embarrassing moment?
If the house were to catch fire and you could only grab three things, what would they be?
If you had to choose between internet or AC/Heat, which would you choose?
What is the most daring thing you have ever done?
What is the biggest risk you have ever taken?
What was your favorite Halloween costume as a child?
If you knew you were going to die next month, what would you want to say and to whom?
What was the first concert you ever attended?
Do you remember the first movie you went to see in the movie theater?
What is the strangest food you have ever tried, and did you like it?
If you could pick one chore to NEVER have to do again, what would it be?
What is your favorite place we have visited together?
If your life were a book, what would be the title?
What did you learn from the pandemic?
What adventure to you dream of going on?
What do you like best about our relationship?
If you could relive one day, what would it be?
If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
What is the most special gift you have ever received?
In what way are you most like your dad?
What is your favorite thing that I do for you?
Name one quality you are grateful you didn’t receive from your parent.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
If you could work for a charity, which one would you choose and why?
Can you think of a time in your life when you were the most scared?
If your car had a name, what would it be?
If you could go back and live in a different time period, when would it be and why?
Would you rather skydive or bungee jump?
What is the best date we have ever been on?
What age would you like to stay forever?
If you could spend 24 hours alone, what would you do?
What has been your favorite job?
If money wasn’t an issue, what kind of car would you buy?
If a genie could grant you three wishes, what would they be?
What is your favorite song?
Describe yourself in five words.
Describe me in five words.
If you had to get a tattoo today, what would it be and where?
What do you think the most important quality is for a friendship?
What do you think is our best couple quality?
If you could learn a foreign language, which one would you choose?
What do you want for our family in ten years?
What do you feel is your strongest character trait?
What is your favorite book?
What is your favorite movie?
If you could learn to play an instrument, what would it be?
What is your favorite place/space in our home?
What quality of yours do you hope our children get, or what quality of yours do you see in our children now?
What is the hardest lesson you have ever had to learn?
What are three things that bring you joy?
What do you wish you were better at?
What is your favorite time of day?
If you could own any animal as a pet, which animal would you choose?
If you could have dinner with any person in the Bible, other than God, who would it be?
If you could have a second home, what would it look like and where would it be?
If you had to make a choice between seeing and hearing, which would you choose and why?
If you could write a note to your younger self, what would you say in three words?
To what do you attribute your greatest success in life?
In what ways are we the same? Different?
If safety wasn’t a concern, which natural phenomenon/disaster would you want to experience?
If you had a life motto to live by, what would it be?
What’s something you’re glad you’ll never have to do again?
If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability, what would it be?
If you were to die suddenly today, what is one thing you would want me to know?
What would you like more of in our relationship?
Relate the story of a life changing or formative experience for you.
In an effort to make our lives more enjoyable, what tiny adjustments could we make together?
If you were given the gift of a year to do anything you wanted, what would you do? A month? A week? A day?
Who are three people who have influenced your life in a positive way?
When was a time you felt really close to me?
27 Date Night Ideas
Pack a lunch and go to the park and play Frisbee and or Frisbee Golf.
Get concert tickets for one of my favorite bands.
Go for barbecue and axe throwing.
Go to an Escape Room and then out for dessert.
Get tickets to a play and have dinner before at my favorite restaurant.
Have dinner in front of the fireplace and each of us will finish the line, “Some day I want to…”
Go to a drive in movie.
Go for a coke or milkshake and walk or ride bikes through a historic part of town.
Take a half day hike.
Go to a nearby lake and watch the sunset.
Go to the place (or somewhere like it) that we had our first date.
Plan a “Board night” with snacks and play each of our favorite board games.
Sign us up for a cooking class or go to an art and wine class.
Ride bikes to the Saturday morning Farmers Market and stop for donuts on the way.
Plan a backyard date with dinner and a movie.
Go to a museum we haven’t been to before.
Find something unusual in a town near us and go there as a surprise. Have lunch, dinner or spend the night there.
Go horseback riding.
Plan a dream date where we get our computers and plan “some day”trips to places we would like to travel.
Get tickets to my favorite sports event.
Take me dancing.
Go on a wine tasting tour.
Schedule a couples massage and dinner at a quaint restaurant.
Get or make a charcuterie board and play board games or watch a movie.
Take a drive and look at houses in fun neighborhoods.
Wander through Home Depot or Lowes and pick out or dream of things we would like for our house.
Plan a poker or another game night and bet money, candy, or chores.
Transcript:
[Brent]: Hello friends, welcome back to Life & Love Nuggets. We're glad that you've joined us again. We've been talking about this series on how do you care for your marriage, how do you feed your marriage. Well, we’ve found that most marriages are dealing with some malnutrition, the marriage is not being fed well and so, we've talked about this concept that in early courtship, for us it was 47 years ago when we first started courting and when we all remember those days where we were smitten and we had this chemistry, this initial reaction that was just amazing and we call it a face-to-face relationship. It's “you and me, baby, against the world” and feels really wonderful, you know? Again, we call it “the unoffendable zone” and so, we've been talking about the idea that we all get about 18 months of this and then we kind of turn side to side and now, we've got jobs and got to pay bills and cut the grass and we start having children and it slowly causes us to move apart and we have more of a side-to-side relationship and we can slowly disconnect.
[Brent]: We don't even know we're doing this; it just happens. You know, just by the demands of life. So, we've been talking about these practices on how do you move back towards each other and feed and care for the marriage, in a way that builds strength.
[Brent]: And so, we've talked about everything from love nuggets, to partings and couch time and affirming our spouse and so, today we're going to talk about a couple of more of these and kind of wrap this particular section up today and the first one, is the power of touch.
[Brent]: You know, there's been a lot of studies done on just simply the power of human touch, of what it does for us and it's a-- And we're talking mainly non-sexual touch here. Again, sexual touch is really important in a marriage, that's a whole other topic.
[Brent]: But we'll talk about that another day. But yeah, many of you have maybe heard of studies that they've done in orphanages, you know? Where they've found that a baby can-- That's in an orphanage can be fed well, diaper changed, right kind of temperature in the room and protected, but if they're not picked up and carried for a certain amount of time, they don't seem to thrive.
[Brent]: They don't grow well and so, that power is a thing in our marriages and what can tend to happen like, with all of these things, is we slowly without even realizing we're doing it, we slowly start disconnecting, which just simple hand squeeze, pat on the shoulder, arm around them, we just-- That starts slowing down and oftentimes, what we find is that if there's some tension in the relationship or we're a little frustrated with each other, we-- Again, a lot of it is subconscious, we're not even realizing we're doing this, we just slowly don't reach out as much anymore.
[Brent]: And it can really affect us and so, we want to talk for a minute about being more intentional about this, which is the whole theme of this whole series. Is taking what was naturally inspirational in that early courtship and making it intentional, so that we can have the benefit of positive feelings. Feelings are a byproduct of behavior. We're a bit of a broken record on this, but we're going to talk about that a lot. Feelings follow behavior and so, there was an interesting study that was done many years ago. If any of you are basketball fans, were kind of in the middle of basketball season and there was a coach who was a sports psychologist and he decided that he was going to do an experiment with his high school basketball team.
[Brent]: It might have been college, high school or college.
[Janis]: It was a basketball team.
[Brent]: It was a basketball team and what he was going to do, was that after anybody was fouled in the act of shooting. So, if you know basketball at all, if you're fouled in the act of shooting while you're trying to shoot, you get two free throws. Unless it's a three-pointer, don't want to be too complex on this, then you get three shots.
[Brent]: But after the first shot, all the other four players were gonna come to the free throw line and just slap hands. You know what they do in basketball, you know? I'm just patting you on the rear, slapping hands, you know, high-fiving or whatever and he was going to do this for a year and he was going to test the correlation between their teamwork, their locker room relationships and their off-court friendships. Those are the three factors that he was going to study. He went for a year and oh my gosh, the results were amazing, off the charts. Their teamwork went way up, their locker room relationships were better, off-court friendships were better.
[Brent]: Now, if you're a basketball person, obviously somebody got a hold of this study, because everybody does this now.
[Brent]: At all levels, boys, girls--
[Janis]: Even the little tiny ones.
[Brent]: Even little tiny ones. After that free throw, all the other four players go to the free-throw line and they all slap hands and it is not saying “good shot”, which I think is so fascinating. They do it even if they miss it.
[Brent]: They're basically saying “I'm with you, we're in this together. Come on, team, let's do this!”. They're saying all kind of stuff without saying it.
[Brent]: Just by physical touch and what we find in our marriages, is that we oftentimes withhold affection, because I feel like you missed the free throw. Is you did something or didn't do something that bothered me, so instead of walking down the hallway passing you and just touching you or instead of giving you a hug in the middle-- In the morning or whatever, I just don't, I just walk around you and it speaks volumes.
[Janis]: And then, it can become a habit.
[Janis]: And so, we slide into this old married people habit where we don't touch. I mean, oftentimes we'd all ask couples that I'm working with is “so, when you watch TV together, how do you sit?”.
[Janis]: And usually they look at me very blankly and then they say “well, he sits in his chair and I usually sit on the couch” and I'm like “why don't you try sitting next to each other?”. Which goes back to what we see in counseling with pre-marriage couples, as opposed to marriage counseling. I think you've said before, you know, marriage counselor has to have two couches.
[Janis]: So the couple can sit as far apart from each other as they can and pre-marriage couples, basically need a big chair, if that, because they have their legs over each other and--
[Brent]: All warm and snuggly, yes.
[Janis]: We do that when we're dating, we touch each other, we snuggle. You know, we hold hands and then when something happens, we quit doing that and then it becomes habit and we don't realize what we've given up.
[Brent]: Yeah. It will affect us.
[Brent]: You know, those behaviors whether we're touching or not will have an effect, it'll change the behavior or the feelings, positive or negative. Now, I always have to say we're not trying to overwhelm anybody, we know that there are some people that are just more touchy than others, okay? When we-- You know, talk about love languages, as there’s some people where physical touch is a big thing for them and some, it's not so much and so, we're not trying to overwhelm anybody. You know your partner; you know what is appropriate for them. As parents we realize that there's three categories. Should I talk about these categories?
[Janis]: Yes, we found that there's three categories among our four children. There are S’s, NS's and SS's, and N is a non-snuggler.
[Janis]: So, yes, NS is a non-smuggler. A non-snugler is “I want you to hold your distance”. So, our daughter-- One of our daughters when she was like, I don't know what, five or something, she was like “Dad, you may kiss me right here on the forehead and that's all”. She didn't like big hugs. Now, as an adult, she's more snuggly, but then she was an NS.
[Brent]: Yeah, and I had to respect that.
[Janis]: Yes, and then, there's S's. S's like to snuggle. They don't want to be overwhelmed, but they like to snuggle.
[Brent]: They’re snugglers, yeah.
[Janis]: Yeah, they just like to be close. SS's are super snugglers and those are the ones that you kind of find yourself peeling them off of you. We have one son that's a super snuggler and even to this day, many times he'll walk in the house and pick his sisters up and throw them over his shoulder and that kind of thing. So, we know that people are different and you need to know. Do you have an NS, an SS or an--?
[Brent]: An S, yeah.
[Brent]: Yeah. So, be respectful of each other, we don't want anybody to overwhelm each other. Like, being able to go “oh, it's enough, okay? Enough” and “well, they said on the podcast that I should--"
[Janis]: Try. That's when they say “I'm an NS, but I'll tell you what works for me”.
[Brent]: Yeah, yeah, and so-- But still, reaching out appropriately the way that they can receive it and feel good about it and just being more purposeful about that. We also, there's one other caveat to this, that we need to make sure that we guys know what meaningful touch is to our partner. Because sometimes for women, our touch feels like grabbing and so, we want the wife to be able to say “if I'm stirring something on the stove and you come up behind me and put your arms around me, around my waist, I really-- And kiss me on the neck, I really love that. When you move your hands up farther, I feel like you're trying to take us to a whole different direction, okay?”.
[Janis]: Or my train of thought has changed.
[Brent]: Yeah, no, but that-- That's inappropriate all the time, but that's not what-- This is not-- This is not giving a free license for us guys to be grabbing, okay? And to move everything sexual. Matter of fact, the more you can focus on simply non-sexual touch, we'll talk about this more in intimacy, but oftentimes women, even because non-sexual touch is not happening so much, that even when that happens it's like “well, I know what he wants now” and so, we don't want that, we want to do this consistently that I'm just reaching out, I'm not expecting anything in return, I'm not trying to move this a certain direction, I just care about you.
[Brent]: And so, with those understandings, we just say touch away and be more purposeful about it, you know? So--
[Janis]: Right, and again, that's something that's a good conversation to have, what is meaningful touch? And you know, you talk about men and women, but sometimes I hear men go “I just want to hold hands. I just want to sit close on the couch” and so, it's “what is meaningful touch to each other and how do we put that back in our relationship if that's gone? Or how do we increase it so that we can have that closeness that we really want?”.
[Brent]: Yeah. So, we're not saying that, “okay, 10 times a day now you need to--”. We're just saying be more purposeful about it.
[Janis]: Yeah, it's powerful.
[Brent]: And a lot of these things we suggest you really try to do it for 30 days, until you can kind of form a habit in your life about it. 30 to 60 days can help you get more in the groove of this, but you'll have to be more intentional about it and so, start with that conversation.
[Brent]: And just say “let's love each other, let's care for each other more in this important way”. The last one we're going to talk about, maybe the most important one?
[Janis]: It's definitely the one that we've heard when we go back after seminars. We do seminars in churches and when we go back another year, it's one that we hear that people have continued to do and that they have said makes a powerful difference.
[Brent]: Makes a difference.
[Brent]: And that is date night. Now, whatever your thought is about date night, we want you to hear us out here. Because we’ve found that there are different outcomes of date night and the reason we have structure and give some guidelines for all these things, is because you can do some of these things and they not go well.
[Brent]: It can make things worse.
[Janis]: And we've heard all kinds of things.
[Brent]: We've heard all-- We’ve had people had date nights and it was like, horrible.
[Brent]: Which is one of the outcomes that we hear of date nights is that “we got into a conversation, it went south, we came home early”.
[Janis]: Uh huh, “and I don't really ever want to do anything with them alone again”.
[Brent]: Absolutely, “we can't afford that”. In our busy culture we don't have a lot of time to be together like this, we've got to make sure that these get the full benefit. There are also date nights that are just okay. “We went and did something, it's fine, kind of neutral” and then there are those where “we went and did something and it was wonderful. We had such--"
[Janis]: “Really fun.”
[Brent]: “We had such a great time”. Again, we want to help you be able to do the latter, to be able to have the best experience. Again, having a very limited amount of time to be able to do this, but being able to squeeze all the juice out of them and get the fullest benefit from this.
[Janis]: And it doesn't just happen. Again, it's like the other things we talk about, you really have to be intentional about it and that's why we have guidelines to help.
[Brent]: Yes, yes. So, we're going to talk about those for a few minutes here and we have six of them that we found that are helpful. Do you wanna talk about the first one?
[Janis]: The first one is we need to make it a priority. We have so many things that are going on in our lives and we can go so many directions, but this is the most important human relationship that you're going to have, this is the one that's going to last the longest. I just was joking with somebody the other day and said “you know, I want to be holding hands with him in the nursing home, hopefully, they'll put us in the same room”.
[Janis]: But this is the one that's going to last the longest and so, with all the things that you have going on, it needs to be made a priority above other things and many times, people will go “we don't have that much time”. Carving out two, three to five hours a week, makes a huge difference in your relationship.
[Brent]: One to two percent of our week. One to two percent. Out of 168 hours, one to two percent and it's amazing how many couples have a hard time pulling this off.
[Brent]: And so, we're challenging couples to go “maybe we need to rethink this new year and maybe we aren't putting this as a priority enough” and so, priority we recommend and we know we set the bar pretty high here, is weekly.
[Brent]: You know, two to five hours every week and some couples we share that with, look at us like we've lost our mind. We raised four children, we know how difficult this is, but it's one of the most important things that we can figure out. So--
[Janis]: And I always say “happy secure kids come from happy secure marriages” and so, you really are doing your kids a favor by spending some time-- Even if you have to pull them off you as you leave, which we've known-- We have had experience-- We've experienced it really is important that you make it a priority.
[Brent]: The second guideline is couples that have been most effective of this, do it at the same time every week. That we try to find this time that we can lock in. Because you all know how schedules go, I mean, everything just fills in all the gaps, you know? Even if we think we have some extra time this week, well, it'll get filled up with something and so, we encourage it to be a little bit like, what we call a sacred time for our marriage. In the American culture the most sacred time we have is Sunday morning. Even people that don't go to church, don't plan business meetings usually on Sunday morning, we leave it-- We don't put demands on people's time during these times.
[Brent]: We just respect everybody. So, it's like if your date night is Tuesday night, which by the way, it doesn't have to be Friday or Saturday, you know? It can be all kinds of things.
[Janis]: It could be Saturday morning, it could be-- If your schedule is different, it could be Thursday afternoon.
[Brent]: Yeah, and so, it's-- Whatever that is, then we're more mindful about scheduling the rest of our week around that. So, if it's Tuesday night and somebody asked me to do something on Tuesday night, it's like an automatic “no, I've got a commitment, I can't ever do anything on Tuesday nights”. More likely for this to happen. Now, this will not happen 100% of the time, I mean, if you're-- If you have a family birthday party, it's one of your parents birthdays, we're not going to call and go “sorry, we can't come to your special birthday party because it's our date night”, okay? But we're more likely to reschedule.
[Brent]: More likely to think “oh my gosh, we've got the birthday party on a date night. When could we do our date night this week?”. I have some couples that say “well, gosh, our schedule is just so busy”. They said that “we just-- It changes so much, we're gonna have to sit down every week and decide when we're going to do it”. I asked them “oh--" Maybe two months later “how's the date night going?”; “we haven't quite got into it yet because this happened and then we got busy with this and this”. I'm telling you, we know how difficult this is and--
[Brent]: But if you can lock that in, then you start thinking child care, we start thinking schedule, we start adjusting things away from that. Gives a much better chance for this to happen.
[Janis]: And it's really powerful for your partner when somebody asked them-- Asks-- Okay, when you are asked to do something on Tuesday night, if that's your date night and they go “no, I'm sorry, I have a commitment”, it speaks to your partner. It's like “I'm important”.
[Brent]: “I’m most important”, yeah.
[Janis]: “He or she are making me a priority” and so, it really does have a positive effect in that way.
[Brent]: Yeah, powerful. Yeah. So, the third guideline.
[Janis]: The third guideline is and this is the most important one, actually.
[Brent]: Of course it is.
[Brent]: By your inspiration.
[Janis]: But it is just for fun. This is not the time that you discuss problems, it's not the time that you try to decide whether you get an algebra [Unintelligible] or a tutor for your son in algebra.
[Janis]: Anything that could cause conflict, you do not talk about. No work, no kids, no home projects, it's just for fun and we'll often have clients go “well, if we can't talk about our kids and we can't talk about work and we can't talk about conflicts, what do we talk about?”. Fortunately, we do have a list of possible questions that you can ask each other during date night, to kind of prompt discussion. I purposely did not number them, so for the people that have to do things in order.
[Brent]: Thank you.
[Janis]: Yes, you don't have to go in order, but there is a little space where you can check a box, so that you know that you've already used that question before. But it's a way to recreate the dates that you had when you were dating.
[Brent]: These are brilliant ideas and because, again, most couples, we go and we sit down into a restaurant. You know, we finally got the kids settled, we're going to go do something, we sit down in the restaurant and it turns into a business.
[Janis]: It does.
[Brent]: You know, and now, we're talking about some problems of some kind.
[Janis]: It's very easy for it to become a business meeting and because Brent and I are in practice together, we had a church together for many years, we have some other business interests, we could easily talk about business all the time and if we're not careful, it'll be like “oh, did you get the stuff for the taxes done? Did you do so and so?”. So, something I started a long time ago is, when we go on a date if one of us tends to bring up anything related to business and I'm guilty too, it's not just Brent.
[Brent]: It’s mostly me, but she does it too.
[Janis]: But I do it sometimes too. So, what we do is we say “I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, you're talking about the Sharps? We're not the Sharps, we're the Smiths when we're on our dates”. So, it's a pleasure reminder of “okay, we need to focus back in on us and having fun together”.
[Brent]: If you have to pretend you are different people for a few hours, do it. We have to unplug, otherwise we just are grown up problem solvers or we're co-parents or we're co-business partners. That's where most marriages tend to drift.
[Brent]: Because of the demands of those things. Again, we don't sit and think about that, you know? After the honeymoon go “Okay. Well, fun time's over, let's get serious”.
[Janis]: Yeah, “let's be boring old people”.
[Brent]: Yeah, and-- But just the demands of children and business and homes and all those kinds of things, just pull us those directions and so, we have to be intentional about boyfriend/girlfriend, right? And creating that kind of an experience and those questions that you came up were awesome, that just get us thinking about something different. I have some couples that decide they want to, you know, want to read a book together, you know? Some kind of an important book or a fiction book. It doesn't matter, and they both read a chapter each week and they talk about it on their date. I mean, you can talk about current events, you can talk about that kind of stuff, but we have to keep it light.
[Janis]: And fun.
[Brent]: And fun and we have to unplug.
[Janis]: And you know, I think as a culture, sometimes we devalue fun.
[Brent]: Oh my gosh, we do.
[Janis]: We think as grown-ups we're not supposed to do fun or you do all your work and then you have fun, which in real life, you don't get all your work done.
[Janis]: There's always something to do and so, I think we've devalued that and I think about the book by Julia Cameron, “The Artist Way”, she encourages individuals to have individual dates. She calls them “artist dates”. It's really a book on encouraging creativity, but she encourages people to just schedule time to do something fun, whether it's going to an art museum or looking at flowers or going and just doing something fun to get away from life. So, who better to do something with than your spouse?
[Brent]: Yeah, absolutely, and we may talk about that more at some point, just self-care, you know?
[Brent]: And how do we-- How do we care for ourselves in that way and so, without having that boundary and I tell couples “You’re going to have to have a really strong boundary, you're going to bust each other on this serious thing, because you'll go there”, you know?
[Brent]: Because it'll just-- It'll take the energy out of it. But the number one killer of date nights is we just got something, got the kids taken care of, we decided we're gonna go do something, we hop in the car, we start pulling out of the driveway and we look at each other “what do you want to do?”.
[Janis]: “I don't know, what do you want to do?”.
[Brent]: “Well, I always have to come up with something, why don't you think of something?”, Anyway, you know how that goes and here we are driving across town, we can't decide what we're gonna do, we're getting frustrated with each other. We're getting irritable, our blood sugar's dropping. We show up at a restaurant, it's got a 45-minute wait. This will kill it; it will just suck the life out of this.
[Janis]: Yes, it will.
[Brent]: And so, we just don't let this happen. So, in the show notes, we're gonna have a lot of notes for you this week. In this show notes, we're gonna have a little template where you can make a list of your top 10 date night ideas. We're going to put a few date night ideas in there as well and I tell couples “Make a list of your top ten. Don't worry about whether your partner likes it or not or whether it's their favorite”.
[Brent]: “If you want to do it and you want to do it together, then put it down”. We have you make your list, your separate list of your top 10 guidelines. Then, what we do is we alternate. So, every other week it is your responsibility to plan the experience, but when you plan it, you don't go off of your list, you go off of their list. Janis likes these little home furnishing stores; I don't know what--? What do you call them?
[Brent]: People have little booths and they're selling antique furniture.
[Brent]: She loves us to walk through those. Never been on my list in 44 years of marriage.
[Brent]: But what happens--
[Janis]: And I love plays.
[Brent]: You love plays.
[Janis]: And you've grown to love them.
[Brent]: I've grown to like this. Some I like better than others.
[Janis]: Yes, I know, but you do it.
[Brent]: Yes. Instead of restaurants, she would rather go to-- Now, it's fair, because next week we'll go to an action-adventure movie and a barbecue, which is on my list.
[Brent]: And so, number one, the words will never ever, ever, ever come out of your mouth again “what do you want to do?”.
[Janis]: “what do you want to do?”.
[Brent]: Which is a killer, it just sucks the energy out of it. Number two, it's fair because we get to do stuff that both of us like. Over time it's a balance.
[Brent]: And number three, you get this cool benefit of giving and receiving. You all know, if you have children, that sometimes at Christmas when they open a present and you hit the target, you get as much or more out of it than they get out of it and it also, is when they're doing something nice for you, somebody plans a date for you with you in mind and know it's just for you, it's a cool feeling, it's like they're giving you a present.
[Brent]: And so, many months ago we were in a in a theater, it was one of those with the reclining seats.
[Brent]: So, I know it's cold out. Janis had planned this for me and I looked over and I know it's cold out because she had pulled her coat up over her, up to her chin and underneath her coat, she was playing Solitaire and I looked over. Now, some people just think I'm being sarcastic about this--
[Janis]: I knew you weren’t
[Brent]: That I was being offended or something about this.
[Brent]: But I'm telling you, I wasn't. I leaned over and I said “I feel so loved right now” and I knew she planned it for me. This was not one of her movies, she was willing to plan it and just go and sit next to me. I didn't care whether she was watching it or not.
[Brent]: And afterwards, it was like-- There were just like, way too many people getting blown up and stuff, I just--
[Janis]: You know, I grieve for-- I grieve for these people that are on TV and so, I'm like “oh my gosh, six FBI agents were just taken out. At that point that is six families!”. So, I try to go “hmm, I'm gonna play my game instead. Brent loves this”.
[Brent]: And again, I feel very cared for and very loved and it was special for me, because I knew it was not your kind of movie.
[Brent]: So, it's always planned. We get-- It's fair and we get this cool benefit. This is a pathway to create and to keep alive boyfriend/girlfriend.
[Brent]: This will keep it special and interesting and fun and we don't just slide into the same old patterns. Now, it doesn't mean that you don't do some same things periodically, you know? I know-- I have some couples that say “we have our favorite restaurants and everybody knows us” and I go “well, we know that, we're empty nesters”.
[Brent]: You know, we do that too. We go into some restaurants now and--
[Janis]: They start our order.
[Brent]: They just start our order and so-- But that's not a date night.
[Brent]: And so, those are all fine, but this is just for the two of you and so, work on your list, exchange those and if you can get into this choosing, it'll make a big difference.
[Janis]: Yes, and it is just for the two of us.
[Janis]: It's not, you know, we want you to spend time with your friends, we want you to spend time with your kids, but really is that time for just the two of us. When we were dating, we double date some, but gosh, that time when it was just the two of us was the most special. So, go ahead and plan that time for you and again, don't feel selfish about it, because it's helping to build your marriage. One of the best things that has happened to us in the last few years is, we have a couple of kids that live out of town and they'll come in town for the holidays and they will say, which is so sweet, they will go “hey, would you mind watching the kids tonight?” or the one without kids will go “hey, this is our normal date night, are you okay if we don't do this with you guys tonight and we go on our date night?”. It does my heart so much good that my children, all four of our children are consistent about having date nights and it keeps that relationship alive and it keeps things positive.
[Brent]: Yeah and so, again, we like to do stuff with other couples. [Unintelligible]-- This is no other couples, no kids.
[Brent]: When we raise four kids, we always had a little family night on another night and we let a different child pick out a little video that we'd watch and popcorn and stuff. Not a date night.
[Brent]: You know, for some couples the closest thing they get to date night is sitting in the stands watching their kids play sport.
[Brent]: This is not a date night, okay? And so, make this, create something special in these moments and so, just for the two of you and then, the final guideline that we recommend, is just agree on a budget for this. We just don't want this to ever turn into a conflict. We don't want somebody planning some extravagant evening, even to bless the other person. Where we rent a limousine and we get front row tickets at the NBA game or something and the other one's sitting there all night going “I can't believe we're spending this much money doing this”. We don't want it just to ever turn into a conflict.
[Brent]: And so, just agree on what's a reasonable budget and divide that by four, you know, in a month and divide that by four and just try to stay with that. Just so it doesn't turn into a conflict. We've seen some couples plan date nights that it costs like, nothing.
[Brent]: You know, are very minimal and those oftentimes, have been the most significant experiences and so, it's not about how much money you spend. We know again having four kids, we know Child Care is expensive, we raise kids hundreds of miles away from our family. We never had family to watch our children, so we always had to pay for it. We know that can be expensive, but it can be one of the most significant investments that you can make and you're gonna have to figure out, problem solve a bit on how to do this. I tell couples “I know all the things that are going to come to your mind on why you can't do this; I have an answer for every one of them”. There's a way through this, there's a way to barter with another couple and you watch their kids on one night, they watch your kids on another night. A way to make it happen. We've seen churches have date night, you know, monthly or every other week date nights, where they watch the kids at the church and the couples get to go out and so, with some creativity, some thought, this can happen.
[Janis]: You know, I often have couples say “well, can't we just have a date at home?”.
[Janis]: Well, yes, you can. The problem is for most of us, if we have a date at home, then we go ahead and clean up the kitchen afterwards and we go “well, let's just watch a Netflix show”, which is what you probably do a lot of nights anyway and then, somebody gets out of their-- Gets their computer out or they have their phones there and they're responding to a text or they're folding laundry and that's not a date, that's not really focusing on each other, that's just a night at home. But we do have a few clients, I have a few clients that will make it a special night, where they get the kids in bed and then they plan some kind of dinner, that's a special dinner that they do on the back patio and then, they just sit there and talk for the evening or they pick a special show to watch and they don't do anything else. But we encourage you to not do that every time. Please get out of the house, it's good for you to get out and do some things that are different. But that is an option to alternate in with your dates.
[Brent]: Yeah, just have a plan still, just make sure that whoever’s weak it is, is planning that whole experience.
[Brent]: You know, because a special little video, a special meal and a little campfire in the backyard or something like that, could be a special time from time to time and so, put the energy into it and so, we encourage you to make your list. Talk about together when's the most likely time we could do this.
[Brent]: Whoever's the planner, we encourage is the one that's got to be thinking about the schedule. So, if I'm the planner this week and I know we've got a conflict, then I've got to get ahead of that, I've got to be the one that says “oh my gosh, we've got a conflict on this day and you know, can we move it to this day?”. Also, talk about surprises. Whether you like surprises or not.
[Janis]: I do, Brent.
[Brent]: I know you do.
[Janis]: Okay, just wanted to--
[Brent]: Janis [Unintelligible], she's a woman, she wants to know what time to be ready and what to wear, but she kind of likes to know-- Doesn't want to know what we're doing, she's kind of, you know, driving across town and we pull in some place and it's special. Kind of likes that feeling. Now, some people don't like that, some people like to be told at the beginning of the week “this is what I've got in mind”. It's fine, just whatever works for you.
[Brent]: Now, these are Brent and Janis rules, but these are guidelines that we've put together over the years, kind of hearing feedback from couples, that can create pretty amazing experiences and the final thing we recommend is, I encourage couples to get a literal calendar, a physical calendar for 60 days and plot your names on it.
[Brent]: So many couples get started with this, then a special event comes up and they forget who's in-- Who's the planner and they get off track and then they lose energy. If you can follow through with this and make sure that you're doing this and alternating for 60 days, most couples will like, get pretty jealous for this. It's like “we're gonna make this happen” and you're not going to need anybody else to motivate you. But give it a try.
[Brent]: And give it a test and so, move towards each other physically, care for each other, develop some boyfriend/girlfriend date nights and see what happens in your relationship.
[Brent]: So, as we go, blessings to you and your family. Go in peace.