Oct. 1, 2009

I would die without date night.

Last Friday night, Mr. Boyfriend (a.k.a. my husband), coupon and I, made our way to a local Italiano restaurant for our weekly date night ritual. The last few weeks have seriously thrown off our schedule, and I was beginning to think that if I didn’t get a little eye contact, I might start throwing shoes at him.

I make no bones about the fact that I’m a high-maintenance gal. He knew from date one that if he wanted any of This, it would take routine effort. Personally, I put as much into my relationships as I expect to get out of them. Thankfully, Mr. Lucky thinks I’m worth the effort.

So we sat down to dinner and placed our order. At that point I made serious business about catching up on my yap time and yawed his ear off (which I am certain he loves). At one small lull, I looked across the restaurant and noticed two other couples out for date night — with their small children in tow.

I observed their dinners for a few moments before comparing their experience to my own. Now I ask you, who do you think was having more fun? Those parents, their cranky kids or Mr. Romance and me?

The thing is, when you go out to eat with your kids, you’re in Parent Mode. There’s no gazing into each other’s eyes for extended periods of time (unless you’re having a blinking contest to see who’s stuck with spaghetti clean-up duty), no feeding each other across the table (but plenty of force feeding the children, “I paid for those French fries and you’ll eat them!”), and no murmured terms of endearment (just curse words).

As couples, we spend the weekdays hopping around after our kids and our jobs and our responsibilities, stopping just long enough to pass in the hall or discuss the essentials. If couples are lucky, they manage to sit and watch the news together, or catch a re-run of “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

But actual relationship building? Most of the time it just doesn’t happen. We’d all like to think that osmosis is a good relationship builder, but sometimes it takes more than co-habitation.

Talking takes time. You can’t just sit down at the dinner table on Tuesday night and have a deep conversation about where you see your life in ten years; that kind of fodder needs time to ripen. It needs an appetizer, a salad, an entree and a dessert — with no juvenile or work-related interruptions.

I’ll tell you, by the time we were polishing off our hot fudge brownie Sundaes at the local drive-in, we were companions again. Every successful team needs a routine powwow. Ours is date night.

I’m convinced that as far as marriage is concerned, the key to happiness and joy in life comes down to two little words: date night. Seriously, just go.

See more at Annie's blog at regardingannie.com