Date Night Tips

Some great date night tips from pastor Mark Driscoll. 

1. Parents, if you can’t afford a sitter, is there a way to set up a rotation with three other families to take turns each week watching kids for date night?
2. Husbands, when is your date night? Your wife needs it. You do, too. Grace and I have enjoyed Friday date nights for about 20 years.
3. Husbands, don’t waste every date night at a movie where you can’t talk. Use the time to visit with your wife, draw her out, and study her like you do the Bible.
4. Husbands, plan out your date nights. Ask you wife in advance what sounds good, see what your options are, and make a plan. She’ll be thankful.
5. Date night killers: no plan, selfishness, laziness, letting technology keep interrupting, and doing the same old predictable thing.
6. Time with other couples now and then is OK, but if most date nights involve other people, there is likely an intimacy disconnect in the marriage.
7. Dads, moms who stay home all day with the kids need to get dressed up, taken out, and have some adult conversation with their husbuddy.
8. Husbands, what can you do to find some creative ways to make date night fun and endearing even on a tight budget?
9. Husbands, what can you start doing days or hours before date night to build the expectation of connection with your wife? Flowers, cards, calls, texts?
10. When life gets crazy, the kids are sick, etc. is there any way to sneak in a bit of a date night at home with say a soak in the tub together, glass of wine etc. after the kids go to sleep?
11. Sometimes sending the kids out to someone’s house and having a date night at home can be cheap and fun if planned right.
12. Men, you don’t pursue a woman to marry her and stop pursuing her. You pursue a woman to marry her and pursue her with more passion and creativity than ever. How’s it going husbands?
13. Men, you don’t need to understand women. You will be doing better than most men to understand just one woman. Date nights are to ask inviting questions, listen, and learn about her. It’s also a night to open up and let her do the same.
14. Men, if you don’t date your wife, someone else may eventually volunteer for the job.
15. Ladies, sometimes it’s a great gift to go into your husband’s world for a date night by doing something like putting on a jersey going to a game and eating a hot dog. His love language may just be hot dog.
16. Men: find a shirt with buttons, try two eyebrows instead of one, find a breath mint or 20, show up with a gift, don’t ogle other women, and go to a restaurant that does not have a spork.
17. Sometimes the best date night is date breakfast, date lunch, or surprise pick up your spouse from work for an hour at a hotel.

Another resource I'd highly recommend for men is C.J. Mahaney's Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God.  We need to remember that our marriages were designed by our Lord to be a picture of Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:22-33), therefore the health of our marriages is truly tied to God's glory.  Let's constantly pray and work to be pursuing our spouses for our joy and God's glory!

~Ryan