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Anatomy of a Date

There you are sitting across from your spouse in the restaurant that you always go to. Eating the same meal that you always order. Talking about the kids, and work. Then you go sit in a movie that is probably the highlight of the night. This is too often a night out for most couples. Have you wanted to change up the routine, but wasn’t sure what to do, well now we can look at what makes a good date night out.

  1. Location, location, location

 

The location of the date is one of the key aspects of going out with your spouse. Whether it’s a night out with just you and your spouse or a night in the house after the kids go to sleep. Location matters.

 

The location will help with what activities are available.  Instead of the usual restaurant or movie that you would normally go to, try something new. Maybe a food tour or fowling.

 

If you’re going to have a date night at home after the kids have gone to sleep; the same applies. Pick a room in the house that you don’t spend a lot of time in. Or just a room where you can sit and have your date night. Set the scene, light some candles, and leave the TV off for a little bit.

 

  1. Conversation

 

Men, we’re not typically extroverted and apt to talk for hours on end. However, we should be able to talk to our spouse. If you’ve been married for some time it can be hard having something to talk about other than work and family. Not because you don’t want to talk about something else, but so much of our lives revolve around those two aspects.

Don’t worry if you need some topics that will help jump-start the conversation, you can download these conversation starters.

 

  1. Present Yourself

 

If you look good, you feel good. There have been times where you get out of the house and you’re just happy to get out for a minute and get away from everything that is pulling on you. In those cases, you end up going out in whatever you have on at the time.

 

Other times, put some thought into what you want to look like. Treat the date with your spouse like you did when you were actually dating and wanted to impress them. You put your best foot forward and you felt more confident because you wanted the other person to take notice of you. The same should apply in marriage. Put your best foot forward.

 

What truly makes a good night out with your spouse? You do. You’re married, you can be nervous in a good way. Have fun with your dates.

 

Discussion Question:

What do you enjoy most on your date nights?

 

3 Easy Ways to Make Your Spouse a Priority

When you really matter to someone, that person will always make time for you. No excuses. No lies. And no broken promises – Anonymous

Man, life is busy. There are so many things on our agenda and our to-do list that something is bound to fall through the cracks. How do we make sure that our marriages are not the things that we allow to fall through the crack? So, how do we, in a busy and fast paced world make our spouse a priority? How do we make sure that the person that we value the most doesn’t feel like an afterthought?

spousal support

If people are honest there are times in the marriage where each person may not feel like they are a priority for the other person. This comes from the ups and downs that come with our self-esteem and being married. Marriage can have its ups and downs. The key word that I mentioned before is “feel.” Our feelings can betray us. We can think or perceive an action from our spouse one way and it was intended a completely different way.

There have been times in my marriage where I perceived an action from my wife one way. Because I felt a certain way and perceived those actions a certain way, I then felt like I wasn’t a priority for my spouse. Was there anything that she actually did? Was she trying to make me feel that way? The answer to that question is a resounding NO. It was just my feelings and my emotions. While we can’t always help how someone perceives our actions, we can make sure that we do our part to make sure that our spouse is a priority.

 

  1. Connect with them throughout the day.

If you are trying to establish or reestablish the place that your spouse has in your life, there isn’t a better way to do than to check in with them throughout the day. If your spouse hasn’t always been the priority, you may experience some blowback. Don’t let this deter you. This is a change in your behavior.

Connecting throughout the day should be viewed at paving a new road. You’ve got to bulldoze the path first before you can put down the asphalt and drive on it.

 

  1. Invite your spouse in.

Marriage is one of those things where because you spend so much of our time with another person it can be easy to assume that you know what they will think. We have to take a step back and not assume that we know how our spouse will react or think. Stepping back allows you to include them. Making your spouse a priority means including them, sometimes even in the small decisions.

 

  1. It’s the small things

Big gestures are great and they have their place in your marriage. The small gestures can be just as impactful when it comes to making your spouse a priority. Grabbing their favorite candy bar at the grocery store, or a card that communicates that you are thinking about them. It’s those thoughts and corresponding actions that will communicate to your spouse that you’re making them a priority.

 

Discussion Question:

How do you make your spouse a priority?

 

Can Habits Change?

Have you ever wondered why you keep doing the same thing over and over. It feels like you’re in this place where it seems as if life has you in this continuous loop. Something good will happen and then something from your past keeps coming back into the picture. Or the time that you decide that you’re going to start a new diet is when a co-worker decides to bring in sweets into work. Then it seems like we have to restart our diet all over again.


So can we change our habits? Are we stuck they way we are? The simple answer is that yes we can change our habits! No, we’re not stuck being the same person forever. We can grow and change, but it’s up to us on how to do it.

Your habits determine your life Click To Tweet


Here are a couple of ways that we can develop the habits we desire and move in a different direction.
Habits are like paved roads in our minds and actions. We do things a certain way because at some point we paved a way in our mind of how it should be accomplished. That paved road became easier and easier the more we traveled it. Developing a new habit isn’t tearing up the old road, but it is laying a road that we need to travel instead of the old road. This is why sometimes we can fall back into old habits and ways of thinking.


1. Identify the Cues


There is usually something that triggers a habit. When it comes to bad habits it can be stress, or an environment that will bring certain feelings and then the habit. Your alarm going off in the morning may be triggering you to hit the snooze button.


2. Disrupt the Cue


Once we are able to identify the Cue, then we can change the triggers. With our example of the snooze button. If we’re hitting the snooze when the alarm goes off, then to disrupt the cue, we would move the alarm clack to the other side of the room. Actually having to get up out of the bed and walk across the floor disrupts the cue.


3. Replace the Cue


Ripping up the old road is a lot harder than paving a new one. Basically it is easier to replace a bad habit than it is to completely stop a bad a habit. The new habit will interfere with the old habit and stop us from going into autopilot.


4. Forgive Yourself

 

The whole process of starting a new habit takes time. We can be our hardest critics, so forgive yourself when there is a slip up. The entire process of changing a bad habit is not an easy one. Know that there will be hiccups along the way. Just don’t allow the hiccups to stop you.


Discussion Question:

What habits do you want to change?